


Novocaine

by jatty



Series: Dogs 2.0 [2]
Category: My Chemical Romance, The Used
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Drug Use, M/M, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-03-21 03:01:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 46,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13731729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jatty/pseuds/jatty
Summary: Part Two of my "It All Goes Back to the Dogs" rewrite!Gerard strives to make a world and life for himself outside of Frank's protective arms, and Frank struggles to make sense of the cryptic postcards he keeps receiving from across the country. Is Gerard done with him or not?





	1. A Friend For The End Of Time

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back! This version is very different from Dogs Part Two--Rust. I really wanted to do more with Bert and make him a better character. Let me know what you think!

Gerard passed a wary look over his shoulder as he was led into the crowded house party. A man at the door had stopped them, asked them who they knew, then ushered them quickly inside with embarrassment when he was told who the gentleman was.

Not that Tommy was really much of a gentleman at all. He was rich, though, and the party was apparently in his honor—or so he kept telling Gerard as their cab took them into Salt Lake City. 

Gerard had met Tommy at a hotel bar in Jefferson City, Missouri, and let the man be his ticket out of his two month stint in MO to get to Utah. One step closer to California, Gerard guessed—not that that had ever been his ideal destination.

When he left Jersey however long ago it was, he didn’t have a plan. He didn’t have a mission or a goal or a dream...he had the clothes on his back, the whiskey in his pocket, and the black sketchbook under his coat. 

He got himself into New York City, homeless and on the streets for a week before he found a man named Irvin or Ivan or something who took him in. It was alright at first, the fucking half-decent and the booze coming non-stop, but Gerard grew sick of the bed bugs and cockroaches infesting I’s apartment and decided to leave. He hooked up with a drug dealer who wanted to be called Pezz on the streets and Daddy in bed. 

The booze came non-stop and so did the cash allowances. Gerard was allowed to buy whatever clothes he wanted, whatever shoes he wanted, whatever watches or sunglasses or art supplies he wanted. Even though Pezz had a wandering eye, a wicked temper and a vicious tongue, he only seldom put his hands on Gerard when he spoke out of line or showed his jealousy. The beatings were quick and short, and followed with a plethora of apologies and, of course, more cash and gifts. If Pezz hadn’t gotten shot in the head, Gerard probably would’ve stayed with him forever.

After Pezz died, Gerard quickly packed anything worth money into a big black duffle and hit the streets again. He pawned what he could to get by and ended up on the streets for a few nights before he met a guy whose name he can’t remember—or never learned. 

Maybe he’d been spoiled by the kind treatment he’d gotten from Frank and I and Pezz, but he only lasted a few weeks with Asshole before trashed the man’s apartment and left him high and dry with no one to fuck and no one to beat. 

Gerard hitchhiked for a while after that, fucking in exchange for transportation and getting beaten almost every time he switched drivers. That was how he’d ended up in Jefferson City. He screwed a few dealers in exchange for a bed, but the coke dealers in Missouri were far more brutal and intense than Gerard could handle—and paranoid, too. 

He was tempted, but he never touched their drugs—he was happy to drink all their booze and smoke all their weed, but didn’t want anything to do with their rocks or lines of powder. 

That didn’t stop him from getting beaten by his lovers’ gang members or threatened at gun point by his lovers themselves. 

He couldn’t take it, and he couldn’t bring himself to fuck any more truck drivers who’d just beat him half to death and leave him stranded in the most remote stretches of the interstate. 

He decided he wanted a man like Master—someone rich and not through drugs. 

So he cleaned up nice, pawned what was left of his valuables, and started drinking in the hotel bar. He made eyes at Tommy, Tommy made eyes at him, and they fucked for a week straight while Tommy was in town for business. Gerard pretended he was sad to see Tommy go when it came time for him to leave the city and Tommy, loving that a “young” guy like Gerard wanted to pay attention to him, flew them both to his next business stop—Salt Lake City. 

He had something to do with publications and the entertainment industry. He snorted a lot of cocaine and forced Gerard to take ecstasy any time they went out together—including this shitshow of a party.

There were too many people here, all writhing together to the blasting rock music on the stereo system. The house reeked of beer and marijuana, and the air itself was so smoky that the flickering party lights all made lines like laser beams between the rooms. The pill made him jittery and he wanted to take off his coat, but remembered that he needed to keep it with him. His sketchbook was in the lining of his leather jacket along with all his money and the valuables he’d been quietly stealing out from under Tommy’s nose.

Tonight he was finding a new mark and he was getting the fuck out of this awful city.

It took a long time to get out of Tommy’s grasp. They fucked in the bathroom while about ten other people tried to beat down the door so they could take a piss. Tommy left as soon as he was finished, not bothering to see if Gerard had gotten off or even giving him time to fix his clothes before another man came in. He was still on the bathroom floor when that guy started yelling and Gerard feared he was about to get beaten to death by the swarm of people in the doorway—but he wasn’t. He was pushed out, barely dressed, and able to zip his jeans as he stumbled into the crowd to find his mark.

He’d gotten good at telling straights from gays after his time in the city. A lot of guys didn’t try to make it known, but there was always something in the way they looked at him that gave him away. 

Unfortunately for him, this hell-hole party seemed to be dripping with pure, heterosexual testosterone. Every guy had a girl he was grinding on—and the single ones were playing beer pong with their bros and not bothering to pass Gerard a glance or a ball to play with when he loomed close by watching. 

He stood out here with his long hair and tight jeans. Everyone here had baggy pants and backwards hats.

Where the fuck had he gotten himself this time?

Giving up on the beer pong, Gerard found his way into the kitchen—the only well-lit space besides the bathroom—and helped himself to more liquor. A few girls tried to talk to him, but their advances made him uncomfortable and the pill in his system made him want to simultaneously scream at them and kiss their makeup off. 

He did his best to keep quiet.

Which was good because his mark showed up a few moments after all the girls fluttered away. 

“Hey! Pour me some of that if there’s any left. I’m dying here,” the guy said. 

Gerard felt his face heat up as soon as he looked at him, hating himself for it and unable to stop it as he laughed at himself and poured the stranger a drink. 

“What’s that look?” The guy asked.

Gerard couldn’t face him again, just kept staring at his own cup and laughing. God, he hated Tommy for crippling his charms with this god-awful pill. He couldn’t think straight—he couldn’t focus enough to form a strategy.

Maybe that was Tommy’s fucking plan.

“My name’s Bert—what’s yours?” The guy screamed over the blasting music.

“I can’t tell you,” Gerard said, finally looking up to meet his eyes and laughing harder at the bewildered look in the black-haired man’s eyes. His hair looked so filthy and stringy and Gerard didn’t know why, but he wanted to touch it. 

“Can’t tell me? Witness protection?—Wanted by the CIA?” The man asked, smiling back at Gerard and laughing before swallowing down the shot of Jack he’d been poured. “We need more liquor. This party’s dyin’!”

“Know a place we can buy some?” Gerard asked, smiling horribly and letting his eyes trace the man up and down. The look in the man’s eyes as soon as Gerard met them again was almost frightening…

Gerard backed up a step from him and felt the blood rush from his face. 

He looked irritated. He looked...confused. 

“Yeah, I know a place,” he said—still giving Gerard that cold, was it mistrusting?, stare.

Gerard couldn’t think of anything to say for what felt like an hour. He was left staring at this gorgeous man’s face—then started thinking about touching his hair again.

He really wanted to run his fingers through that mess…

“I-I really...want to buy you...drinks,” Gerard said, as if reading from cue cards. 

Somehow, it worked because the man’s smile came back and he burst out laughing.

“You want to buy _me_ drinks?”

“I will buy you drinks—we should buy drinks! Let’s buy drinks!” Gerard started proclaiming, smiling at him even though he was still kind of nervous. Something felt wrong and he began to fear that this man was just going to take him outside and thrash him the way some of the truck drivers had. 

“Well, let’s buy drinks!”

Gerard caught Tommy kissing some woman’s exposed breast as he and the man left the party together. It sent a bolt of jealous rage through him that he kept in the pocket of his chest the whole time he and Bert walked to the liquor store eight blocks from the house party.

They talked about nonsense the whole time, or at least that was how it felt to Gerard. True to his word, Gerard bought three bottles of liquor—using up most of what was left from his stash—and then followed Bert to an apartment building not too much further away. 

“How did you get into the party?” Bert asked as he unlocked a first-floor apartment door.

“I went with Tommy,” Gerard said. “Well—I mean… I-I didn’t _go_ with Tommy. Tommy got me in. I’m on Tommy’s list. I know Tommy.”

“Shit! How did you meet him? I thought you said you weren’t on his label?”

“Label?” Gerard asked, not remembering that part of their conversation at all. He must’ve still been thinking about Bert’s hair…how absolutely sweaty, filthy it was and how much he wanted to touch it.

“Yeah—me and my band are on his label right now. He helped us produce our first record. Where’d you meet him?”

“Uh… Missouri. Hotel?” Gerard asked as he followed Bert into the dark apartment. He clipped on a light and the small, filthy place lit up. 

It was a one room apartment—literally one room. There was a mattress on the floor covered in a heap of pillows and blankets, a couch stained with God knows what, and dressers and coffee tables littered with papers, food wrappers, and a beer cans. 

“It’s a mess. My girl kicked me out last month.”

Gerard felt his heart sink a bit and had to force out some kind of automated, sympathetic reply. 

“It’s whatever. Just glad I can afford my own place this time around, you know? Though I bet she’d like to see me back on the street.”

“Back?” Gerard asked, watching Bert’s hands as he took their bottles of liquor out of the plastic bag and set them on his cluttered counter.

“Yeah. I ran away from home when I was a teenager. Lived on the streets for a little while—mostly couch surfing but, you know. Life’s not a fairy tale. Sometimes you end up sleeping at the bus stop til the cops come and shake their dicks in your face to get you to leave.”

“Homeless,” Gerard said, thinking far more words than what ended up coming out.

“Yeah.” Bert was getting cups out of the cupboard and finding places on the counter for them between all the empty beer cans and used plates.

“I ran away at fifteen,” Gerard said, coming over to Bert and taking the bottle from his hands so he could pour them drinks himself. Jack and warm Coke… Not ideal, but it’d keep the party going.

“Really? That’s crazy!” Bert’s face lit up again, and Gerard realized the man must think he’d found someone like himself. Gerard could build off that. Maybe they wouldn’t ever fuck, but the man might let him stay here until he could find a man to take him in…

“It was...nine years now. Nine, I think...maybe ten years. On my own,” Gerard said, his words getting twisted as he tried to form sentences. 

“What happened that made you leave?” Bert asked as he led Gerard over to the couch. They say side by side and Gerard made up a little sob story about not getting along with his father and his mother not understanding him.

Bert shared a story as well about being raised in a religious house that he didn’t agree with. He said he knew he didn’t fit in and was tired of his family trying to “fix” him when he wasn’t broken. 

Gerard said nothing about being gay—worried for a moment that it would lead the man to attack him—but, like an idiot, let himself be moved by Bert’s story and fucking kissed him once it was over. 

Bert shoved him, immediately, and Gerard recoiled to the other side of the couch, picking at the wet spot on his jeans where his Jack and Coke had spilled.

“Sorry—sorry, that was… Dude. Did you just fuckin’ kiss me?” He didn’t look mad, Gerard noted. He didn’t look angry—just confused and cold, like he had been in the kitchen at the house party.

“Sorry. I… Felt something,” Gerard said. God he hated this fucking pill. He had no tact, no ability to _think..._ He just wanted to touch Bert’s fucking hair...that was all his stupid head could think about.

“Felt something?” Bert asked, laughing and taking a big drink from his cup. “Man, I need a little more of that in my life.”

“More of what?” Gerard dared to ask, feeling like he didn’t want to know. He knew it wasn’t the same thing he wanted more of…

“More of...I felt like it, so I did it. Impulse! Spur of the moment. Spontaneous. I wanna be more like that.”

“Aren’t you already?” Gerard asked cautiously. “I mean...we just met and now we’re here drinking.”

“Yeah! We just met and now we’re here drinking—but you take it up to level, like, ten thousand! We just met, I don’t know shit about you, I’m gonna suck your face even though we’re both dudes. Aren’t you even scared? Somebody—somebody could kill you for doing that. You do that to the wrong mother fucker and, shit…he’d beat you to a pulp. He’d kill you.”

“Are you going to kill me?” Gerard asked, forcing himself to look Bert in the eye.

If he held his head a certain way, if he parted his lips a little...if he blinked _just right..._

“Nah,” Bert looked away quickly, his face heating up now.

Pill or not, drunk or not, Gerard still had it. 

“I’m not like that, man. I mean—I’m not about to go to jail over some dude I don’t know kissing me on the mouth.”

“That’s good. You know what they do to guys like us in prison,” Gerard said, settling back into his drink.

Bert started chuckling, then laughing. Gerard passed him a sideways glance and smirked at him around the rim of his cup.

He liked this guy… He liked him differently than how he’d liked Tommy and some of the drivers who were actually kind. 

“Sounds like a fuckin’ song or something. I oughta write a song and call it that.”

“I bet it’d be awesome if you wrote it,” Gerard said. “I’d love to see your work. I-I know Tommy, but… I don’t know your band or your songs. Do you have any CDs I could listen to?”

“Oh, man. You don’t want to do that,” Bert said, looking bashful now as he finished his drink. Before he could get up, Gerard took his cup from him and made a show of sauntering over to the filthy counter and mixing him another Jack and Coke—a stronger one this time. 

“I’d love to your work. You don’t have to show me, though. I know...you’re probably worried I’m just some spy or something.”

“Yeah… Yeah, you and your not having a name—on the run from the CIA.”

“It’s Gerard,” he said, blushing from the way Bert looked at him when he said it. “I didn’t want to say it and make an ass of myself at the party and have...Tommy hear about it. My name’s Gerard.”

“I like it,” Bert said, accepting the cup Gerard gave him with a smile. “So Gerard who drinks with strangers and kisses men he doesn’t know on the mouth...what is it you want, if not all my musical secrets—if you’re not some spy.”

“What do I want?” Gerard asked, feeling the alcohol a little more strongly in his system. He poured himself more Jack into his cup and took a swig of it before adding just a touch more Coke. “I want...to fuck...fuckin’ play with your hair. That’s what _I_ want. But that can’t happen, so I guess your music secrets are gonna have to do.”

Bert started laughing so hard that tears came to his eyes. Gerard returned to his seat on the couch, feeling a little more secure at this man’s side since he’d shown no signs of hostility besides his occasional, cold stare. 

Gerard liked him. Shit, he actually liked him…

“You wanna do what?—Man, I ain’t showered in like two weeks. This is my first time getting home in like...a month.”

“I can’t help it! I just want to...” Gerard gave himself permission to reach over and entwine his fingers in a few greasy strands of Bert’s hair. It surprised him that the man didn’t pull away or comment—he just sat still and let Gerard touch him, comb his fingers through the dyed black strands and then move to massaging his scalp.

“Fuck that feels good… I’m gonna sound like a liar, and I don’t usually fuck with dudes, but shit...that feels nice.” Bert took another long drink from his cup and Gerard was sure once it was finished, they’d be seeing what else Gerard’s hands could do. “You really like doing that?”

“I love it…” Gerard got to play with his hair a little while longer, then Bert decided it was time to listen to music—not his own music, but bands he liked that Gerard came to quickly enjoy. They talked about music, then art, then Bert’s tumultuous past relationship that he clearly wasn’t over despite claiming he slept with “at least” thirty chicks after the break-up to get her out of his head. 

She said he was too much for her to handle, too wild—too unreliable. She didn’t like the idea of being alone when Bert went to the studio or the fact that he valued time in the studio over the shitty part-time job she forced him to have. She didn’t see the big picture, Bert said. She didn’t see the life he had planned for them and she kicked him out, no matter how much he begged her to reconsider. 

Gerard couldn’t help it… He felt so bad for the other man. He kissed him again and Bert laughed at him again, then he finally put on his own record and turned the volume down as if he was self-conscious about anyone else hearing it. 

It was rough around the edges, but Gerard found it amazing. He told Bert so—pointed out every lyric he liked, every melody he loved, every song title he felt an attachment to. The more he listened, the more he liked Bert—and the more it seemed that Bert liked him. 

They partied together until about four-thirty when Bert crashed on the mattress with his pants half-off after coming out of the bathroom. Gerard helped get him situated on the bed, making sure he was on his stomach and not his back in case he started to feel nauseous again, and covered him with the blankets. He also made sure to re-do Bert’s fly in case he woke up in the morning with no recollection of what happened and came to the conclusion that they’d fucked or Gerard had tried fucking with him…

As much as Gerard wished it had happened, the opportunity didn’t present itself. It didn’t feel right with Bert so wasted drunk and himself half-high. 

So while Bert slept, Gerard started cleaning. He found trash bags under the kitchen sink and started filling them with all the bottles and cans he could find. It took a few hours, but he’d successfully gotten all the trash put away and even cleaned out the refrigerator of all its spoiled, rotting food. 

Gerard helped himself to a shower after that in the studio apartment’s tiny bathroom. The bathroom wasn’t as gross as Gerard expected it to be, but it needed cleaned desperately and he didn’t have the energy tonight. 

Not really paying attention, Gerard used the first towel he could find and folded up his clothes before carrying them out to the couch and setting them down. He found a shirt hanging in Bert’s tiny closet and pulled it on along with a pair of boxers he found after snooping through a few drawers. They were smaller than his own, but his had blood and stains from the lube Tommy had used when he’d gotten rough in the bathroom and he didn’t feel like wearing them. He put his jeans back on and used his leather jacket and T-shirt as a pillow on the couch. 

He wanted to sleep next to Bert, but felt it would only bring him trouble in the morning. Bert may have been amiable last night, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t wake up pissed—couldn’t wake up looking for a fight and bash Gerard’s face in with the lamp next to his mattress.

( ) ( ) ( )

Frank didn’t do much outside of work these days. He didn’t have the energy to visit Ray on his days off and music had no interest to him now that...that things had changed.

Eight month’s ago, he’d taken his dog for a walk and came home to find Gerard and all of his money gone. All the notes his Master had given Frank were in a pile on the floor shaped like a heart with a slash through the middle—ripped into thousands of pieces.

Frank didn’t realize he’d hurt Gerard that badly. He didn’t even realize he’d been robbed until he got back from frantically driving around the city in search of his partner...or whom he thought had been his partner.

He had to call Mikey and let him know that Gerard had disappeared…had to tell Gerard’s parents their son was missing again and that he was so sorry.

He was so, so sorry…

It had been eight months and he still couldn’t get over it. He felt like he should’ve seen it coming—like he should’ve realized what Gerard would do and should’ve caught it, stopped it… He felt responsible for Gerard and now he was terrified of what had become of the man out there on the streets.

Was he dead? Was he hurt? Was he homeless? Did someone take him in? 

Why was the thought of someone taking him in even more terrifying than the thought of him being homeless?

God, what sort of monster would he meet out there and move in with? 

Frank had been forced to borrow money from Ray to pay his rent after realizing Gerard stole literally every dollar and coin in his wallet. He didn’t dare ask Gerard’s parents to replace it since they’d already tried to sue him for involvement in Gerard’s disappearance. 

He didn’t know how, but he managed to avoid going to jail. He told the cops everything—every single detail he knew—and gave them the shredded up papers Gerard had left behind along with the paperwork from the hospital where he’d taken Gerard. 

Mikey, thank God for him, had vouched in Frank’s defense when the police asked him about the situation. Gerard wasn’t ever in danger with Frank, he said. Gerard was happy with him and was free to come and go from Frank’s apartment as he pleased. 

An investigation had been launched, but that was the last Frank had heard of anything. A month after Gerard vanished, Gerard’s family left him alone—Mikey included. 

Frank tried to move on, but it was hard… Gerard’s comic books and movies had all been taken back, but they left his clothes. Frank wore some of them, kept others out of sight so he wouldn’t get emotional… 

Why did he go?

Why did he run away without saying anything?

Frank worked himself to death in an attempt to get his mind to stop throwing up the questions.

He dated someone else for a little while, but it wasn’t the same it ended almost as quickly as it had started. 

Other than Sweet Pea, his life was empty—it was back to the way it was before he met Gerard, only this time he could feel how empty it was. He could feel what he’d been missing and didn’t know what to do to get it back—or if he could do anything. Maybe he’d had his once in a lifetime chance and he’d ruined it. Maybe he’d gotten Gerard killed in the process…

Why, oh why, did he have to push it that night? Why couldn’t he have just told Gerard he loved him and that he’d take care of him no matter what? What right did he have to try pushing him back home when he was hurting so much? 

Eight months passed without Frank having the slightest clue about what was happening to the man he’d come to love more than anything else in the world...and then he got a post card.

It was from Salt Lake City, Utah with “xoxoxo I don’t love you anymore” written on the back.

At first he thought it was a prank, some cruel joke from Mikey or Gerard’s parents. But when he called Mikey to ask about it (call him out on it), Mikey’s response had been: “Oh, you got one too?”

His parents had gotten the exact same message as Frank, but Mikey’s said “Wish you were here. You’d love it. See you soon someday.”

Utah…

How the fuck did he get himself out to _Utah?_

The police were no help since Gerard was a legal adult and could choose where he wanted to be and where he wanted to go. Frank couldn’t afford to go to Utah to find him, nor could the Way family.

At least they knew he was alive, but it wasn’t enough. Not really. 

That message, too, hurt like a punch in the gut. 

XoXoXo I don’t LOVE you ANYMORE

After eight months, that was all Gerard wanted to tell him...the same cold words he wanted to say to his parents. He was hurt and almost wished Gerard would’ve just stayed quiet about it. He was off living his life, fine… But did he have to stab Frank through the heart to do it? He had to know everything Frank did was for his own good...he had to know that.

Two months after the “I Don’t Love You” postcard, Frank received another. 

This one came from LA, had a picture of a dog on the front and on the back a sketch of the same fucking comic strip character Gerard had drawn for him at the diner.

Mikey had gotten a postcard as well, but he was reluctant to talk to Frank about it over the phone. Frank didn’t put much weight in Mikey being secretive, but a week later the boy showed up at his diner and gave him the postcard he’d received. It had a photo taped to it of Gerard with another man. He’d drawn a little frame around the picture and wrote “happy happy happy Bert Bert Bert” across the bottom of the card. 

It made Frank want to cry, but he forced himself to laugh and hand the card back. 

“He does look happy,” Frank said. “It’s good for him. Did your parents get one?”

“No. I’m surprised he sent you anything,” Mikey said.

“Me too,” Frank said, trying to be dismissive so the tears wouldn’t well up again. 

“No, I mean...if he really didn’t love you, why would he send you anything? Why wouldn’t he send you a picture of this guy or—”

“I don’t know. If there’s anything I learned from living with him, it’s that I don’t know who he is or what he thinks. He’s not...he’s not rational. He does what he wants. There’s no point trying to read into it,” Frank said.

Mikey looked hurt and left. 

( ) ( ) ( )

Bert loved his fucking weirdo.

Gerard stumbled drunkenly into his life and managed to find a home there in Bert’s shitty little corner of the universe. He didn’t care that Bert spent most of his time in the studio tweaking his album with his friends, didn’t care if Bert wasn’t able to bring him to parties he and his friends were going to. He was so laid back—so chill. 

It was refreshing after having a woman ride his ass for eighteen months and then kick him out to the streets. 

Gerard cleaned up the apartment and kept it nice even when Bert would throw parties or have video game nights with Jepha and Quinn. He kept to himself, didn’t stir up trouble...just liked being in Bert’s presence it seemed. 

To be honest, Bert really wasn’t much into guys. He didn’t care what other people did and he was never one to discriminate, but dude didn’t typically do it for him until Gerard came around.

But then again, Gerard was like a fucking porn star or something. The stamina that guy had—the slutty mouth he had… God, Bert wished he could just live in bed with the guy. He didn’t care if his bandmates passed him sideways glances or how many times they pulled him aside to ask him if he was sure about what he was doing. Gerard made him feel things he hadn’t felt in years—in his life, really. 

Sure, he didn’t know much about him at all, but...did it matter? Gerard clearly cared about him. There was no way he didn’t. He cleaned up so well, made sure Bert actually ate real food and not just pizza and beer. He did laundry, he listened when Bert talked—then got in this great habit where he’d ask Bert about his day and listen to him while sucking his cock. 

The only downside was every time Bert had something happen at a party or saw something crazy happen out on the street and thought “I can’t wait to tell Gerard about this,” he ended up popping a boner in public. Because any time he settled down to tell Gerard about his day, that man was going to be on his knees putting that slutty mouth of his to good use. 

Then there was the day Bert got to come home and tell Gerard that he and his band had been signed to a real record company, not just an indie label. He’d been slowly teach Gerard more and more about the music world and the process to actually achieving success. So once he got to confess that they were actually with a real label, actually about to go on a tour and get paid for all their efforts, Gerard was quick to start the celebration party early. 

They must’ve gone at it three times that night—and two more times in the morning. 

Bert wasn’t much attracted to guys, but he couldn’t deny that he digged the way Gerard was so into him. 

Jeph and Quinn didn’t trust him at all, and Dan liked to pretend it wasn’t happening. Bert told them countless times to trust him and that he knew what he was doing, but when he suggested taking Gerard with them on their tour, Jeph looked like he was going to have a heart attack. 

“You can’t bring him! You don’t _know_ him!”

“He’s right,” Quinn chipped in. “I know you like him, but he could be a junkie—a psycho. What if he’s just spying on us? He could ruin everything we’ve worked for.”

“Talk to him!” Bert had responded. “Just talk to him. He’s not a psycho, he’s not a junkie, and he’s not a spy! He’s just a dude that’s really into me.”

“Since when are you into dudes? Since when is that a thing?” Jeph asked, looking at Bert like he was implying something astounding—like he was suggesting Gerard had slipped him Love Potion No. 5 or some shit.

“Since I met him. It’s none of your fucking business, but if you want me on this tour—we’re taking him with us. I’ve written ten times as much since he moved in.”

“He’s a muse,” Dan said from his seat on the crumbling leather couch in their practice studio. He was reading a magazine, but listening enough to chime in.

“Right. He’s my muse. He helps me write and he keeps me sane. I want him to come with us. He doesn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Just leave him in your apartment.”

“He doesn’t have any money! He’d starve to death.”

“Here’s a crazy idea—make him get a job. You know, a real one, not just sucking you off,” Quinn snapped. 

Bert fought with them longer and louder until he finally got his way. Gerard was coming with them and that was final. 

And Gerard seemed so happy to be extended the invitation. He’d been drawing when Bert had told him—too distracted in his little fantasy world “behind his head” to get on his knees like a good boy—but quickly abandoned his sketch pad to wrap his arms around Bert when he was told he was allowed to come on tour. 

“Don’t let the guys get to you, okay? Jeph and Quinn are...not too excited about it.”

“Well they don’t like me, so that’s fine,” Gerard said, still smiling. 

He just understood things so well and Bert loved it. He wasn’t like a jealous broad who got her knickers in a knot if one of his friends didn’t grovel at her feet. Some people didn’t like him, and Gerard was okay with that.

Bert loved him for that.

They didn’t say it to each other, but Bert felt like it was understood. The way Gerard would look at him—the way he’d try to rip the pants off him any time they drank or got high together—it said enough. 

They fucked twice that night, then Gerard went back to his little sketchbook, hiding his doodles from Bert until he begged to be allowed to see. A while back he’d found Gerard’s black notebook hidden in under his mattress and had flipped through it while the other man slept. It had all kinds of sketches in it, and all kinds of pages torn out and missing. There were drawings of birds and of curtains, drawings of fruit in bowls, a sketch of a man named Marcus, little super heroes and scary aliens...then there were sketches of Bert tucked into the last few pages. Some were rough, others more detailed and accurate as if he were trying to work out how to perfectly capture the lines and angles of his face.

Bert didn’t know when Gerard would’ve worked on them, not able to remember a time that Gerard just sat and stared at him drawing… Was he doing it from memory?

It showed how much he cared, Bert thought. It showed how much Gerard actually liked him—and how much he thought about him.

Bert had put the sketchbook back under his mattress, then woke up the other man by kissing him.

He told him he was a weirdo as soon as he opened his eyes, and after a flash of pain crossed his face, Gerard just started smiling and kissed him back. 

“Pretty sure you’re the weird one,” Gerard said back, then tried to cuddle him and go back to sleep. 

He was always tired, it seemed. Bert understood it, though, because most nights that they didn’t pass out drunk together, Gerard ended up having night terrors.

The first time it happened, Bert thought it was fake—thought it was a stupid attempt to get his attention because Bert had been out all night at a party he couldn’t take Gerard to. 

He’d just gotten into bed and started spooning up next to his lover when he realized Gerard’s whole body was twitching. He started making these awful, choked sounds and then sat up gasping for air and sobbing. Bert tried to shush him, but Gerard shoved him away—smacked himself into the wall and started screaming. Bert didn’t know what to do with him, but once he turned the light on, Gerard seemed to remember where he was and calmed down. 

He apologized about a thousand times, then threw up in the bathroom from a while before crawling back to Bert. He was abused for a long time—and that was his only explanation. He’d been abused for a very long time and sometimes he had nightmares about it.

Pretty much every night he had nightmares about it, but the frequency of those waking terrors decreased the longer Gerard stayed with him. Bert made him feel safe, he said.

Bert couldn’t fathom how when they were both pretty scrawny, but he let the compliment warm him. It was just another one of Gerard’s weird quirks. He liked eyeliner and lip gloss, drawing in his little sketchbook, and thought Bert was big enough to protect him from the world. 

He was weirdo, and Bert loved him for it. He was so unapologetically himself and it gave Bert confidence just to be seen with him—whether in Utah or California. 

“It’s too bright here,” Gerard kept saying after mailing off a couple postcards. 

Who still used postcards these days? What a weirdo…

“That’s just because you’re a vampire,” Bert said, making Gerard carry his own iced latte as they walked up and down the boardwalk again. 

“I hate the sun. It hurts my eyes...” He was wearing a pair of Bert’s sunglasses, but still complaining. Bert had the feeling Gerard really just hated being outside—hated being around people. It was obvious that crowds made him nervous, but being exposed to the open air seemed to make him nervous too…

Maybe it was from being homeless. Bert could sympathize with that, though he didn’t know how Gerard managed to be homeless for as long as he made it seem. He ran away at fifteen, he said—then never got his own place? Never got a job? Never did anything with himself?

He had a fake ID for a man named Roger Something-or-Other that he didn’t talk about, and made it seem like he had no family worth mentioning—except when he needed money from Bert to buy a few postcards and stamps. 

That was the first time Gerard ever asked him for money. It turns out he’d spent all of his on the liquor he gave Bert and the groceries he bought their first few weeks together. Then he wanted to send a friend and his family a couple postcards and needed five dollars. 

He asked in front of Jeph and Quinn who were over for game night, Bert remembered, and his friends hadn’t liked it. Jeph asked why Gerard didn’t have a job. Gerard looked at the floor like a toddler caught in a lie. Quinn asked why he thought it was okay to ask for money—Bert told them all to shut up.

Gerard apologized and wouldn’t accept the money Bert tried to give him after that. Bert went out on his own the next day and bought three postcards and some stamps—told Gerard not to bitch about it—then went to the studio to practice. 

He had no family worth mentioning, but wanted to send them postcards wherever he went. Weirdo.

“Are you excited for my show tonight?” Bert asked, just to watch how fast Gerard’s face went from a pout to a wide, toothy grin.

“Yes! I’ve never been to a concert before! It’s gonna be amazing!”

“You gotta stay backstage, though, alright? No jumping in the mosh pit.”

“God, no! I don’t want all those people touching me,” Gerard said, smiling as he sipped his latte. He looked so happy and Bert couldn’t wait to perform for him. He couldn’t wait to find out what kind of sex he got as a reward for it either—even if it was just in a filthy venue bathroom or in the backseat of the van before the rest of the band caught up with them. “This is going to be so awesome!”


	2. Not The Life It Seems

Gerard realized quickly that he hated concerts. 

Everything about the venue Bert led him to reminded him of the auction house, and all the people rushing past him reminded him of the guards. He found himself shaking horribly and tried passing it off as jitters from excitement and caffeine. 

He tried desperately to cling to Bert’s side as the carried in equipment and set up their things backstage, but something about Bert’s demeanor changed after the other artists started to arrive. Gerard knew not to touch him or kiss him in public, but it hurt when Bert refused to make eye contact with him and started bossing him around like one of the techs. He didn’t argue at all—just did as he was told—but Bert didn’t seem pleased with any of his efforts.

After being told to “just stop helping,” Gerard found himself trying not to crumble in a tiny space he found behind a discarded piece of plywood in the back of the room. Bert was going to abandon him, just like Master, and all his hard work would be for nothing.

How stupid could he be?

How foolish could he be to believe someone cool and talented like Bert would ever want a damned thing to do with him? 

Bert just wanted attention until it was time for him to be a star… Now he was a star and Gerard was in his way. Now, Gerard was nothing.

He sat behind the tall scrap of wood and cried, picking at the VIP Access badge Bert had given him. There was so much noise and motion going on outside his little hiding place and the chaos made it so much harder for him to keep himself together. 

Maybe if he just stayed here the whole show, maybe if he didn’t come out, he could sleep here for the night and try to find a new man in the morning. 

He heard Bert’s band do their soundcheck and found himself sobbing over missing it. He wanted nothing more than to cheer Bert on and show his support, but the man didn’t want him. What use did he have for Gerard now that he was surrounded by adoring fans and gorgeous women? Bert wouldn’t even want him to hear the soundcheck, Gerard bet. Bert wouldn’t even want him around to know it was happening…

Gerard hid as the crowd filed in to the venue, hid the whole time the first opening band played—hid through most of the second as well.

But despite his best efforts to stay out of sight—to stay out of the way—Bert’s friend and bandmate Quinn found him hiding and called Bert over.

“What the hell are you doing?” Bert asked, looking pissed off. 

Gerard couldn’t look him in the eye, but staring at his scuffed shoes seemed to make things worse.

“I got you a pass so you could watch us backstage. Why the fuck are you hiding back here? What are you doing?”

“I’m sorry.” It was all Gerard could think to say.

“If you don’t want to be a part of this, you can just fucking go. I don’t need you here if you’re just going to make a scene and ruin this for me.”

“I didn’t mean to ruin it—I just wanted to stay out of your way. I just didn’t want to be in your way, that’s all. You told me to go away… I didn’t think you wanted me here. I’m...an embarrassment to you.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? I told you to quit helping because you were shaking like a junkie and you were going to get yourself hurt. I’ve been looking for you all night!”

“I’m sorry,” Gerard repeated, looking him in the eye and hoping it showed how sincere he was. 

“Have you been crying this whole time?” Bert asked, his face softening as he squatted down to be on Gerard’s level. “What are you crying for?—Come on, stop it. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“I just...not good with crowds. Not...not good for this.”

“There’s no crowd back here. It’s just us and some of the crew—it’s not crowded. C’mere. Come out.” 

Bert grabbed Gerard’s hand and started pulling him up, holding back the piece of plywood so Gerard wouldn’t hit his head on it. Gerard hurried to dry his face and pulled his sunglasses down from on top of his head to cover his eyes.

“Now you’re just making it look like I beat you,” Bert said, chuckling and forcing the glasses back on top of Gerard’s head. “See? No crowd. Just noisy. Why are you so scared of crowds, huh? I won’t let anybody touch you.” Then he leaned in to say into his ear, “That precious ass belongs to me.”

Gerard felt his face heat up and he turned away again.

“Come here—I wanna talk to you. Come here,” Bert said, grabbing Gerard by his upper arm and leading him into a small sitting area where the rest of his band was sitting—drinking and smoking as they waited to go on. They didn’t look pleased when Bert told them to get out, and Jeph—who clearly hated Gerard more than the others—passed him a filthy look on his way out. 

“I-I really didn’t mean to upset you,” Gerard said quickly, hoping if he apologized fast enough and sincerely enough that Bert wouldn’t have to scold him.

“I’m just really confused. We were doing great until we got here. Now you’re hiding from me like I beat you up. Did I really hurt you that bad with what I said?—I didn’t mean anything by it.” He looked so sincere it hurt Gerard to make eye contact with him. _He_ looked sorry and he had no reason to be. Bert never did anything wrong… He was perfect—he couldn’t do any wrong.

“I-I just… I don’t know. I really wanted to be here with you, but I don’t want to give us away or make you look bad. I know I got in your way earlier. I know I pissed you off… I just wanted to make sure I didn’t ruin your night.”

“I wasn’t pissed! I don’t care if these fuckwits know I’m with you. What do I care? They don’t mean shit to me. You want to stand close to me, stand close to me. You want to suck my dick in front of all of ‘em, go ahead! I don’t give a shit. Where did you get the idea that I don’t want seen with you?”

“I don’t know,” Gerard mumbled sheepishly, staring at his feet instead of Bert.

“I never said you were in my way. I was just nervous and no one let me have a drink yet when we were moving all that shit. I’m sorry if I snapped at you, Babe.”

“Don’t call me that,” Gerard hissed, barely catching himself even after the words came out. He was remembering flashes of the auction house again and this horrid back room was making it so much worse.

“Oh, fine! Now we’re not together because—”

“No! Just don’t call me that—don’t call me that name. Don’t ever call me that name. I don’t like it.” Gerard looked at him desperately, swallowing hard. Bert must’ve understood him because his eyebrows shot up and he just nodded.

“Okay… Can I ask you something?” Bert asked, giving Gerard his cold, confused look. It appeared so much like anger, but it was never followed by rage. Gerard hadn’t really ever seen Bert mad before…

“Anything,” Gerard answered.

“Are you...on something right now? Like did Dan or...Jeph give you something? You’re not… You’re not being yourself. I’m worried. Should I be worried?”

“No,” Gerard said, shaking his head quickly. “I-I have anxiety. Crowds...new places. You know that.”

“I mean, you were all excited earlier and now this? Crying—saying I told you I didn’t want seen with you? Telling me not to call you my Babe. What… What are you talking about? What’s happening?”

Gerard felt awful for him. He saw, behind that cold look, pain. He was hurting the man he cared so much about and he hated himself for it. He hated himself for not understanding how it was happening. 

“Bert, I…” Could he tell him? Could he really tell him the truth?

No. It would hurt him. It would ruin everything. Bert would leave him stranded here—he’d see how damaged Gerard was and deem him not worth the time. 

“What?” Bert asked, reaching out and stroking Gerard’s cheek. Gerard leaned into his palm, tilting his head to kiss Bert’s thumb. 

“I don’t want to lose you… I think you’re really great and I scare myself sometimes. People don’t...keep me around very long and I… I-I get worried I’m going to ruin it somehow or that—that I already have. I don’t want you to leave me here all alone.” He started crying again… Fuck, he started crying again and Bert was laughing at him.

“You little weirdo. Don’t worry so much. I just get snippy when I haven’t had a drink.” He kissed Gerard on the mouth and bit his lip when Gerard didn’t reciprocate fast enough—then giggled at Gerard’s squeak of pain. 

It was playful. Bert kept kissing him and nipping him—on his lip, on the ear, on his neck—until Gerard couldn’t help but smile back. 

“I gotta go get ready. You gonna come watch me play?” Bert asked.

Gerard nodded and followed him out of the greenroom, keeping his head ducked as he walked past the other members of the band. He knew they didn’t like him…

He faked his smile better this time, pretended the techs rushing around backstage didn’t bother him, and laughed through the awful memories tugging at the back of his mind. He watched Bert get drunk and then get high with his bandmates, only accepting a bottle of beer for himself and the last bits of a joint before Bert’s band was about to go on stage. 

It did nothing to soothe him, but he pretended to be as happy as the screaming fans as Bert winked at him and made his departure to the stage. 

( ) ( ) ( )

After three bad episodes, three shows in a row, Jeph had had enough.

Gerard was cowering again and Bert couldn’t find him—and for whatever fucking reason, when Bert didn’t have Gerard, he couldn’t think of anything else. He was as addicted to Gerard as he was to the bottle and Jeph was sick of it. There was nothing special about that guy, nothing worth fussing over. 

All he did was drink their booze, smoke their weed, wake everyone in the van up with his nightmares, and fuck their singer. That was it—aside from cry and hide and shake like a junkie going through withdrawal. Jeph didn’t see what was so great about him.

So this time, when he found Gerard hiding outside the venue by their van, he pushed him on it. 

“What are you even doing with Bert if this is how you’re gonna act?” He snapped. “He never shuts up about you. He spends his whole fucking night looking for you, and here you are hiding from him like a little bitch. What the fuck is your game?”

The man stared at him—looking like he thought Jeph was going to punch him—and said nothing.

“Talk! What is your game? What the hell do you want with Bert? He’s been through enough shit. He doesn’t need you fucking his life up any worse than it already is.”

“I-I just don’t want in the way,” the man stammered. 

Jeph could’ve laughed in his face if he weren’t so pissed.

“Right! So you run off and hide while he wastes all his time and energy running around looking for you before our set—so he plays like shit because he’s distracted trying to figure out if you’re alright.”

“No...”

_“Yes,”_ Jeph mocked, imitating Gerard’s pathetic tone of voice. “I’m sick of you. I wish Bert would realize you’re no better than one of those drama queen groupies trying to screw him every night. If he’s not paying attention to you, then by God you’ll find a way to make him—won’t you?”

“No!”

“Yes! That’s why you do this! That’s why you go hide, so he can come find you and kiss you and make it all fuckin’ better—instead of practicing! Instead of getting in the zone for our show. If this band fails, it’s on you! If his dream gets wrecked, it’s on _you!”_

“I didn’t do anything!” Gerard said, keeping that pathetic tone—that helpless look on his face—as he stood up from the pavement.

Jeph didn’t know why he did it… Maybe it was the booze.

He shoved him hard back against the van—and regretted it instantly. 

It was like a switch went off. He watched Gerard’s eyes go from helpless and pathetic to murderously cold. Gerard shoved him back twice as hard and Jeph ended up on the pavement—terrified of what the man was going to do next. 

“Don’t touch me,” he growled in a voice Jeph had never heard him use before. “Don’t ever touch me again.”

Jeph waited for Gerard to kick him or stomp on him, but he never did—just glared down at him with eyes threatening to kill and went back inside the venue. 

When Jeph found him again, he was sharing a joint with Bert and sucking down a bottle of beer like nothing happened between them. Bert was staring at him with that puppy love look in his eyes and Gerard was cuddling up to him on the greenroom couch. 

_This man is insane,_ Jeph thought, passing a glance to Quinn who nodded at him as if to ask what was wrong. He looked at Gerard and Gerard shot him another one of those murderous glances as he passed the joint back to Bert. _This man is fucking nuts..._

( ) ( ) ( )

Mikey stared at his latest postcard and laid it down on the coffee table next to Frank’s. He was at Frank’s apartment, checking in on him since Ray told him in a late night phone call that Frank hadn’t been acting himself. 

He’d put off the visit as long as he could, not sure how his presence could possibly help, but when the latest string of postcards came in, he decided to bite the bullet and show up unannounced. 

The postcards came from Portland, Oregon then Seattle, Washington—back to back. 

Mikey’s first card (from Portland) had another photo of this Bert guy on it with a little blurb saying “Show was great. Wish you were here. Bert says hi” with an arrow pointing at Bert’s face in the photo as if Mikey didn’t already know who he was from the Los Angeles postcard. 

Frank’s Portland card said “Wish you’d let me hear you play. How is Sweet Pea?”

No return address for Frank to answer him… No phone number to call, no clues about where he’d be. It was as if Gerard were taunting him—asking him about his dog because that was all Frank had left. 

The Washington cards seemed to spell a different story than the “happy happy happy Bert Bert Bert” everything is perfect tale. 

Frank’s had a drawing of different drug paraphernalia and a monstrous looking creature lurking behind all of it. Mikey’s had a caricature of Gerard on it sporting a black eye and what looked like stitches on the cheek. 

Frank’s postcard read: “I don’t like what they do to him.”

Mikey’s postcard read: “I don’t like what they do to me.”

“Do you think he’s getting beat up by that guy?” Mikey asked, staring at the postcards.

“Probably. That’s what he knows. That’s all he knows—he expects to be treated that way. I don’t know what you want from me… I was nice to him and he didn’t want it. If he’s happier out there traveling the country getting beat up, then...fine. It’s what he wants.”

Frank didn’t mean it and Mikey could tell. The cards disturbed him as much as they did Mikey, and they were both helpless. 

“I wish I knew...what he was doing,” Mikey said.

“He’s touring with someone,” Frank said. “That’s why he’s sending cards from all these places. It’s easy. He talked about my guitar, he said it was a great show—he’s surrounded by drugs. He’s touring with someone.”

“Do you think… Do you think we could find out who? We know where he’s played shows, right? We know this guy’s name. Maybe we could find out the band.”

“Whose to say he’s in the band, Mikey? Maybe he’s part of the crew. Maybe he’s just a fan. There’s gotta be hundreds of bands playing in LA and Seattle and Portland. We don’t even know what night they played.”

“Well this one is postmarked for the nineteenth… and this one’s the twenty-first. The LA one is from the seventeenth...” Mikey took his phone out of his pocket and started researching, typing in tour dates, the cities, and the name Bert. 

He found nothing.

“I wish he’d quit sending them to me,” Frank said, staring at his blank television screen. “He left me. I don’t care what he’s doing. I don’t care about this dude—I don’t care what drugs he’s on or what he got himself into. He stole all my money and he left. I don’t care what he’s going through.”

Mikey didn’t believe him.

( ) ( ) ( )

If Bert ever got his hands on the dumbass, mother fucking punks who beat up his boyfriend, he’d kill them. He didn’t care if he went to jail, and he didn’t care about what would happen to a guy like him when he was in there. He’d break all their hands, bust all their kneecaps, and bash out all their teeth.

Fuck, he’d set them on fire if he ever got ahold of the shit heads who beat up Gerard. 

They’d been having a good time partying after the concert, meeting up with one of the local artists’ family who hosted a big event at their house. All kinds of drugs were being passed around for free, all kinds of booze and perks. Gerard wasn’t much into the hard stuff besides liquor, but he didn’t say a word when Bert helped himself to some lines of coke and a little tab of LSD—not much, just a little. 

Everything was going fine. Gerard was drunk and clingy—scared of the crowd and needing Bert to protect him—then he was gone.

He was just gone… Not like when he would hide at the venues. He was _gone,_ gone. 

Bert remembered the party where he’d met Gerard, how Gerard had left with him instead of the man he’d come with. Gerard went to that party with the owner of the company being celebrated, and left with Bert… Now, Bert had thought, he came to the party with Bert and left with someone else. 

He couldn’t help it. He went into a rage and started trying to knock back his feeling with shots of whatever he could get. He didn’t remember much besides being pissed off and banging some chick in a miniskirt with no panties on…

Then a little while after that he was being led out to the backyard by Dan who said he needed to see something. It was cold and raining and Bert didn’t want to be outside. He probably tantrumed about it, though he couldn’t remember.

The next thing he knew, Quinn and Jepha were pulling Gerard up out of the mud. He’d been beaten to a pulp and was barely hanging on to consciousness. Bert vomited in the grass beside them, thinking of all the awful things he’d just done because he’d gotten jealous. 

Dan cleaned Gerard up in the bathroom while Quinn and Jeph held Bert back as he tried to pick a fight with a random group of guys just trying to smoke their weed on the covered deck outside. After that, they all went back to their shitty motel for the night and Bert was left alone in a room with Gerard that he was supposed to share with his entire band.

They never showed up again until the next morning and Gerard had spent the whole night trying to apologize to Bert for getting injured.

It fucked with him then and it fucked with him now.

Bert left Gerard alone and he got beaten up...and _Gerard_ was the one apologizing?

He just wished he could remember at what point they’d gotten separated. All he remembered was doing cocaine and accepting the little tab of LSD. Then Gerard was gone… 

There was a moment he was afraid he’d been the one who hurt him—maybe he did find Gerard and thought he’d been cheating and, tripping out, beat him for it—but his hands had no marks on them other than his knuckles where he punched a table. And he remembered punching a table…

Plus Gerard kept kissing his scabs, trying to make them better, as they lay in bed that next morning. He wouldn’t kiss the hands of a man who beat him, right?

Bert found no peace that night and no peace the next day… Gerard needed help walking because his ankle was fucked up but he wouldn’t go to a doctor. He didn’t feel like playing their show in Salt Lake City and barely went through the motions before he could hide backstage and try kissing his partner better. 

They had a few days to recover in Utah, and Gerard mostly stayed in Bert’s bed mumbling little details about the men who grabbed him. He’d gone outside for fresh air after losing track of Bert in the crowded house, then bummed a cigarette off a guy he thought was Dan but turned out to be somebody else. He didn’t remember what he said, but he made the man angry and he’d punched him. After that guy hit him, the guys friends came and attacked Gerard as well, thinking he’d thrown the first punch at their buddy and deciding to exact revenge. 

Bert hated himself for letting Gerard get hurt.

He stayed in bed with him, not even drinking he was so upset. Gerard had always prattled on and on about how Bert made him feel safe and how Bert was his protector…

Yeah, Bert felt like the biggest letdown in the entire fucking world. He was surprised Gerard hadn’t run away yet. He had no reason to stay now that Bert exposed himself as a pathetic fraud—too busy getting high and jealous to rescue his lover in his moment of need. 

What if Gerard had been a woman? What if, instead of beating him to death, some men had raped him and left him for dead? Bert couldn’t stand the thought of himself...jealous that his partner was missing and cheating on them instead of trying to find them. If Gerard had been a woman, she would’ve kicked him to the curb that night...

“I have to tell you something,” Bert whispered as they lay face-to-face.

“Hm?” Gerard’s eyes fluttered open, the swelling finally gone in his left cheek.

“At the party...at the party, I slept with someone else.” He closed his eyes immediately after he said it, unable to face Gerard—unable to handle the look the other man would give him. God, how had he become so pathetic? He shouldn’t care so much about it, he shouldn’t have said _anything_ about it. They were really dating, were they? Did he have to say it?

“It’s okay. I wasn’t around. It’s not your fault,” Gerard said. And he said it so calmly, so sweetly, that Bert felt like he would cry. 

What the hell was he _saying?_ What was wrong with this guy?

“It is my fault! You were getting beaten up and I was banging some woman—”

“A woman?” Gerard asked, finally a different emotion coming through besides that apologetic tone Bert had been hearing for days now.

“Yeah… I’m sorry.” He made himself open his eyes and found Gerard staring at him with a weird...smile on his face. “What...what are you laughing at?” Bert asked, sitting up. This was the part where Gerard would say he was cheating too, that he’d been seeing someone else the whole time they were together on tour.

“Bert, you’re...you’re straight. Of course you’re sleeping with women. I can’t compete with that! I can’t get mad about that. It’s not cheating… I want you to have anything you want—whoever you want. If it were a guy, I’d be jealous, but I can’t compete with a girl.”

“You’re a weirdo,” Bert said, feeling sick to his stomach. Why wasn’t Gerard upset? Why did he genuinely look happy to hear that Bert slept with a woman? “What is wrong with you?”

“I just want you to be happy,” Gerard said, finally taking on the expression Bert _wanted_ to see—confusion, hurt. 

“Even if that means you getting screwed over?”

“I didn’t lose anything,” Gerard said. “I’m here. Not her. Right?”

He was right...but it was _wrong._ Why was he okay with it? Why was he okay with Bert getting high and screwing someone else? 

“Do you ever...sleep with anyone else?” Bert asked him.

Gerard looked sickened by the thought—genuinely mortified.

“No. Gross. No one compares to you.” 

“You’re a weirdo,” Bert repeated before kissing him on the forehead. Gerard smiled at him and closed his eyes, going back to sleep. His nightmares had been so bad since he’d gotten attacked...he could only sleep when it was light out.

Bert let him rest a little while, then slipped out of bed and got himself dressed. He felt anxious just sitting in the apartment and his skin was crawling with all the bad thoughts he’d been harboring since the night of the house party.

He passed one last look at Gerard whose exposed face and wrists were still marred with bruises, then grabbed his wallet and keys and left. 

( ) ( ) ( )

Gerard was scared when he woke up alone.

He knew Bert still wasn’t in his right mind and he was afraid of what state the man would be in when he came home. Gerard hadn’t realized it before the tour started, but Bert had an awful affinity for drugs and booze. He was a fun drunk, but when he started in on the hardcore drugs, he just got mean. He was afraid now that Bert had left to get a fix somewhere and it brought him down to fear his lover was really just another addict…

He didn’t want someone like that. He wanted someone stable, someone safe and sane. He would put up with it on the road, but he didn’t want the parties to start happening here… But what right did he have to reject the idea if Bert proposed it? It wasn’t his house...he had no place here. 

Gerard made himself take a shower when he woke up and cleaned the small bit of the apartment that had gotten messy since their return. There wasn’t any food to make himself a lunch, so Gerard settled for drinking stale coffee. 

Bert was gone a really long time…

Gerard was starting to worry that Bert wasn’t actually going to come back a few moment before he heard the doorknob rattle and his lover appeared, carrying grocery bags on one arm and a big plastic bag in the other.

Quickly, Gerard went over and helped him unload the groceries, taking them from his hand so Bert could shut and lock the door.

“Hey! Glad to see you up,” Bert said, setting the big bag down on the floor and coming up behind Gerard at the kitchen counter to hug him around the waist. 

Gerard pressed back against him out of habit and let out a quiet moan, lifting his chin so Bert could kiss his neck if he wanted—apparently he didn’t want to, because his invitation was ignored.

“I got you a present,” Bert said, smiling against Gerard’s ear.

“Why? I don’t—I didn’t do anything to deserve a present,” Gerard said, trying to hide how excited he actually was at the thought. He thought of the big bag by the door and looked at it out of the corner of his eye.

Was that whole thing for him?

“Of course you did! You put up with my stupid ass twenty-four seven. Come here—check it out.” Bert let go of him and walked over to the bag, smiling in a way Gerard hadn’t seen in a while. It made him blush and he looked at the floor before scurrying over and letting Bert coax him into opening the bag.

“This is all for me?” Gerard asked, his face heating up even more.

The bag was full of art supplies—little sketch books and bigger ones, colored pencils and charcoal pencils, plus a little bag to keep it all in. 

“What do you think? The dude at the store said you’d like this kinda stuff. I didn’t know. If you hate it, we’ll take it all back.”

“No! I love it! Thank you! Oh my God—thank you so much! Thank you so much, Bert—this is incredible!” Gerard felt like he was going to start crying and try as he might, he couldn’t get the dumb smile off his face. 

“I saw you drawing on napkins at the last concert,” Bert said.

“My sketchbook is full. I really get to keep these?” Gerard asked, looking at Bert again.

The man laughed at him and then knelt beside him to take the different items out of the bag.

“Yeah—I want you to bring them with you so you don’t get bored in the van and you have something to do while we’re working with the equipment. And...I wanted to say sorry for...for letting you down,” Bert added, his face looking serious for a moment as he reached out to touch the bruise on Gerard’s cheek. 

Gerard instinctively turned and kissed his hand, a gesture he’d learned after living with Pezz. Anytime he got beaten, it calmed Pezz down if he just kissed the hand that struck him. Bert didn’t make the bruise, but he felt guilty for it—Gerard wished he could kiss it away, keep him happy. 

“So is this good stuff? I didn’t get ripped off, right?”

“No! These are great! I’m so happy! Thank you!” Gerard forced himself to drop the pencils and wrap his arms around Bert instead. The man held him so close, so tight… It reminded him a little bit of Frank.

Gerard held him tighter and shut his eyes, trying to push Frank out of his mind and just live in this moment. Frank had been trying to throw him out. Frank didn’t love him… Bert did. Bert clearly did.

After failing to get Bert to take their kisses any further, Gerard made a point to lay out all his art supplies on the coffee table, then fixed them both something to eat before settling in and starting to draw. He drew little comics to keep Bert amused while the other man watched television, then they started a drawing together where Gerard would add an element then hand it off to Bert to add something else. What started as a vampire ended up looking more like a haggard old woman with a straw hat on at the beach—at night, with a walking stick and several other indecipherable accessories that Bert added on. 

Gerard couldn’t quit smiling at him. 

It was dangerous, he thought, to let himself love this man so much. Didn’t he know Bert was going to get bored and leave him? Didn’t he know that one slap at the party in Seattle was just going to morph into dozens more when they left for the tour again? Didn’t he realized he didn’t deserve the kind of affection Bert was giving him?

He didn’t care, Gerard realized. His love for Bert was probably going to end up killing him, and he didn’t care at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for your continued support! I'm so happy you've all seemed to like the new changes and I can't wait to show you what all is in store! :)


	3. What's In A Name

Frank wished he didn’t give a shit. He really wished he could just stop caring about Gerard as quickly as Gerard had stopped caring about him, but when he saw that drawing of Gerard beaten up, his heart started pounding and he felt so sick to his stomach.

What was that idiot doing out there? Who had he gotten mixed up with? If he was back into drugs and getting beaten up by some guy...Frank didn’t know what he would do.

As soon as he realized Gerard was on tour with someone, he couldn’t stop trying to figure out who. He checked everywhere, searching non-stop for any artist who performed in LA, then Portland, then Seattle.

And he found some. The dates matched, then the face did too.

Bert. The Used…

There wasn’t much info about the band besides a blurb on the venue pages. Based out of Utah, alternative rock… That was all he had to go on. They were touring with a larger band, slowly making their way across the US until the Spring when they’d reach NYC.

Frank stared at the website for what felt like hours before he called Mikey, waking him up at three a.m.

“I know where he’s going to be,” he said.

“Who?—What are you talking about? What time is it?”

“Gerard. He’s going to be in New York in April. There’s a show. I know who he’s with.”

“What? Shit—really?”

“The band’s called The Used. The guy in the picture, Bert, that’s their lead singer. They’re playing concerts in every city he’s sent us cards from. We didn’t get one from Salt Lake City again, but he’s there now—or was—and he’s going to be in Tuscon tomorrow night. I bet we get a card soon from Tuscon.”

“Where did you find this out?”

“I couldn’t sleep. I can’t now… I can’t find anything on that band, though. They’re just some little act from Utah. I don’t know how he found them.”

“He’ll do anything when he’s desperate. I just...hope he’s not on fucking coke again. God, don’t let him get mixed up in that shit again. We won’t get him back.”

Frank hummed, scrolling through the pages while listening to Mikey breathing. Any time Mikey said he was going to try going back to sleep, Frank found himself saying anything he could to keep the other man on the line. 

It was hard for him to admit that he didn’t want to be alone anymore.

Eventually, though, they’d hung up and Frank spent most of the week sleepless until his postcard came from Tuscon. 

“We live like animals,” it said with a drawing of a three-headed dog trapped in a too-small cage.

What the hell made him write the things he did? Frank wondered. What the hell was he trying to say? Was he just sharing for the sake of sharing? Did he mean anything by it or did he just want someone to complain to? Was staying in touch Gerard’s way of getting back at Frank, or was he…

Was he just trying to stay in touch? Letting Frank know he still through about him in every single state he passed through?

Shortly after he received his postcard, Mikey called him to let him know he’d gotten one as well. 

“Did you get one?” Mikey asked.

“Says he lives like an animal. Guess touring the country isn’t as glamorous as he wanted to think.”

“Mom and Dad got one again.”

Frank didn’t know why, but he felt his stomach tighten at the thought.

“Do I want to know what it said?”

“He said ‘sorry. You hurt me. I miss Grandma. I had to go. See you soon someday.’”

“Yeah, sounds like he’s had enough. Good to see he finally came to his senses. Did your parents take it alright?”

“Dad said some stupid shit, but just because he’s hurting. Mom cried a lot but she’s happy he wrote them again.”

“Did you get one too?”

“Yeah… I didn’t tell my parents about mine.”

“What was on yours?” Frank asked, grabbing Sweet Pea and putting her in his lap despite her snort of disapproval. Something felt wrong this time. Mikey was hesitating and it wasn’t like before when he didn’t want Frank to know about Bert. “What was on yours?” Frank asked again.

“A phone number...”

“Did you call it?”

“Yeah. I got Bert… That was fucking awkward.”

“You talked to the guy he’s with?” Frank had to set Sweet Pea back down on the floor and started pacing the apartment. Mikey got the man’s phone number—Gerard _was_ trying to get back home. He had to be!

“He sounds alright. Wanted to know who the fuck I was and then yelled at Gerard for a few minutes while I just waited there… Guess Gee didn’t bother mentioning he gave out Bert’s number. I got to talk to him for a little bit, but he didn’t say much. I don’t know why he gave me their number.”

“Well what did he talk about? What did he say—what did Bert say?” Frank asked, his heart beating so hard he could barely even breathe.

“Uh… Gerard said he’s fine, asked about Mom and Dad. Told me about the tour a little bit. He didn’t really say much, to be honest. Bert wanted his phone back. I don’t blame the guy.”

“Did he sound dangerous at all? I mean, you said he yelled at Gerard—”

“Yeah, for giving his number out. It wasn’t like...scary, you know? He didn’t sound threatening. It was early there so I think I woke them up. I only talked to him for a minute—long enough to say I was Gerard’s brother. Bert was just yelling at him to think before doing stupid things and ask him first. It was kind of funny,” Mikey paused to chuckle, “I could hear Gerard whining the whole time. It was like when we were kids. He was just complaining the whole time Bert yelled at him. I don’t even think he said sorry. Oh, God… Don’t hate me for this, but…they sounded good together. He sounded normal for once.”

“I’m glad he’s happy then,” Frank said, his heart sinking. It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fucking fair! 

Why would Gerard keep writing to him if he was so happy with that other guy? Was one man not enough? He had to have one in person and one laying in wait for his return?

Fuck Gerard. 

Fuck him! 

Frank wished he could punch him. 

 

( ) ( ) ( )

Gerard wished Bert would quit sticking stuff up his nose…

He didn’t mind him drunk and he didn’t mind him stoned, but goddamnit he wished he’d stop snorting shit up his nose.

The first time he did it while on tour was at that awful house party. Gerard had been okay with it—not comfortable by any means, but not willing to bitch—but that didn’t stop Bert from smacking him and telling him to basically screw off. Gerard knew it was the drugs and not his lover, but he ran away to hide out back for a while—considering finding someone else and letting this life go. 

He couldn’t leave Bert though… Even when he got high and got mean, Gerard loved him. He was in love with him. He loved the way Bert gave him confidence in his sketches and the lyrics he’d started writing. He loved the way Bert would kiss him in the mornings and stick up for him when the band tried to push him out of their group… He loved Bert.

He was thinking about that when he got jumped out there by the trees. He loved Bert—and he got his ass kicked for it.

He would never tell Bert who it was, just like he’d never tell Bert that he went outside because Bert had slapped him—or that it broke his heart into a thousand pieces when Bert confessed to sleeping with a woman that night when Gerard was missing.

Gerard would never tell Bert what to do because it wasn’t his place, but he really wished he’d stop putting shit up his fucking nose!

“I feel so fucked! I’m fucked! Where the fuck _are we!?”_ Bert screamed as Gerard led him back and forth through the parking lot, trying to get him to calm down so they could get in the van and drive on to New Mexico. “I want to go home! I’m sick of this—are you sick of this yet? I’m fucking sick of this!”

Gerard tried agreeing, tried disagreeing, tried everything to get him to calm down. It didn’t work. He wasn’t like Pezz when he’d been high, wasn’t like any of the truck drivers or anyone else. Bert was just a mess when he got like this and Gerard wasn’t equipped to fix it.

He offered sex, Bert spluttered that there wasn’t a bed and they weren’t animals and doing it in the street. Gerard tried flirting—Bert shut him down, then started talking about his ex-girlfriend again and how awful she was. 

They’d been together for months now and he _still_ wasn’t over that dumb bitch.

Gerard guessed she was kind of like Frank…

“You know what I don’t get?” Bert asked, finally coming down from the drugs in his system after hours of just pacing around and around and around.

“What, Sugar?” Gerard asked, gesturing to Quinn and Jeph who were leaning against the van looking exhausted. 

“You like me.”

“Of course,” he said, smiling at Bert in the yellow lamp-light. 

“That’s just it!”

“Is that bad?” Gerard asked.

“No! But… But you—you like me. You fell into my lap and you just...you just like me. What for?”

“What for? Like, why?” Gerard asked, chuckling. He really wished Bert would quit sticking shit up his nose.

“I don’t get it! She was with me for almost two years! You knew me for five minutes and you’re just sticking around through all this shit. I let you get beat up—I screwed some bimbo. What are you still doing here? Why aren’t you gone!?”

“Because I’m not a bimbo,” Gerard suggested. “Because I take you as you are and know you’re doing what you have to do to...to make a name for yourself.”

It was just like with Master. He’d come home from work and scream and shout about how someone made some mistake that made him and his department look bad—he’d shout and yell and Gerard would come up with any bit of knowledge he’d heard about the business in the past and try to use it to calm the man down. “Wasn’t it your idea for the big merger? How could Kevin try to steal your thunder?” He had no clue who he was talking about or what, but it made Master calm down. He would just scream “exactly, exactly!” until it was time to fuck…

“See, why do you get that and not her? Why do _you_ see that when she couldn’t!? Why wasn’t I good enough for her?”

“You’re more than good enough for me… She just didn’t want you to succeed. She was afraid you’d go off and meet someone better. And you have.”

“You know what? You’re right! She missed out on something great. You’re so fucking right!” Bert grabbed him by the face and kissed him hard. Gerard made himself kiss back and nuzzled him until giving the signal for Bert’s friends to help guide him back to the van and get him inside. 

It was a long night and Gerard barely slept because Bert kept going on and on about his ex, and if he was quiet then his whole body was jerking and twitching from the after effects of the drug. It didn’t help either than whenever Bert would settle down, Jeph or Quinn would say something to get him going again—either about his ex or about how he was lucky they let Gerard come because if he were to act like this without him, they’d leave him behind and tour without him. The empty, childish threat just served to get Bert more agitated and he’d yell for a while, then try to cuddle up to Gerard would be forced to accept his touches even though the guys were all right there. 

He never got handsy in the van—never! Gerard hated being put on display like that, but didn’t know what to do to make him stop. He worried if he tried to refuse or push his hand away, Bert might smack him.

And Gerard just knew Bert’s friends were waiting for the opportunity to use Bert’s intoxicated rage as an excuse to abandon Gerard somewhere along the highway. 

It went on like that for weeks and weeks until they finally reached the end of the tour. Well, the first leg of the tour. They got about a month off to put the finishing touches on their new album, then they’d be back on the road again to tour up the East Coast.

Gerard had constructed a little fantasy world in his head as they made the long trek back to Salt Lake City. He imagined how it would be when they got home—how he’d get to go back to caring for Bert’s apartment and making everything nice for him. 

Then, not even two days after they arrived, reality—a thing he’d been hiding from for over a decade—smacked him hard in the face.

“You need to get a fuckin’ job,” Bert said one morning over breakfast. 

Gerard had just gotten off the phone with Mikey, happily telling him all about the tour and what he and Bert were up to, and all of the good feelings fled him as he took in the death glare Bert was giving him.

It was so sudden, so unjustified, and Gerard almost started crying from that look alone.

“B-But we’re only home for a month,” Gerard stammered. “I-I can’t get a job that fast.”

“Do it. Or you’re out. I’m sick of you using my phone. You have to get your own—I’m tired of him calling me all the time. I don’t know what trouble you got yourself in back home, but I can’t afford to keep paying for it.”

“Paying for it? What do you mean—what are you even talking about!?”

“Paying for it! I buy everything! You do nothing—you do nothing all day. I work! I put a lot of work into my music, into my records and you don’t do anything!”

“I take care of you! I do my job—my job is to take care of you! I-I do everything you say! I make sure you’re fed, that your clothes are clean. I even took your friends’ shit to the laundromat in Tuscon for _them!_ Don’t say I don’t do _anything...”_

“That’s fine on the road, but here—I need help! I need help with bills. I can’t keep buying all your booze and your art shit.”

“I never asked that of you!” Gerard cried. He knew the art supplies had been a trap. He fucking _knew_ he should’ve told Bert to take them back, not accept them graciously like a stupid, naive child.

“All I’m saying is go get a job for a few weeks! Flip burgers, do lawn work—I don’t care. Do _something._ Get Jeph and Quinn off my back.”

“Of course this is about them,” Gerard muttered.

He forgot himself. He realized it two seconds too late. He should’ve just bitten his tongue. He should’ve kept his mouth shut. 

Gerard didn’t even get a second to apologize before Bert _really_ laid in on him. 

“I’m asking you to get a _job!_ Be a fucking adult, Gerard! It has nothing to do with my band! It has to do with you being selfish and lazy! When you first got here, you had money—did you steal it? Is that what you do? You travel around the country, taking advantage of people and robbing them before moving on to someone else? That’s why all you have is fake IDs? Who the fuck are you, anyway!? Gerard? Rodger? You have a driver’s license for Rodger and you can’t even drive!”

He screamed and screamed and screamed until Gerard...broke.

Gerard crumpled in on himself, his fingers gripping at his hair and ripping at it—clawing at his scalp, at his face, at his neck. He didn’t hear Bert anymore. He heard his Master. He heard the words “worthless” and “lazy” and “fucked up.” 

He didn’t realize he was the one screaming them at himself.

( ) ( ) ( )

Bert...loved his weirdo.

He really did.

He loved that Gerard wanted to devote all his time to Bert, that he only seemed to think about Bert and nothing else. 

So when Gerard crumbled to the floor saying “I’m sorry, Master! I’m so sorry, Master! I don’t mean to be so worthless. I’m sorry I’ve been lazy. I’m fucked up—I’m fucked up! I’m so sorry, Master!” Bert felt like he’d been shot in the heart. 

There was his little weirdo, literally tearing his skin apart, begging forgiveness through the heaviest sobs Bert had ever heard...and nothing he said made him stop. 

Bert sat down on the floor in front of him, tried to hold him—tried to stop him from clawing himself. He tried shushing him, kissing him, telling him it was alright, but Gerard didn’t stop. 

He knew someone, somewhere, had hurt Gerard in the past. He knew he’d been mistreated, but never saw the mental scars like this. Usually it was a night terror or a detail that would slip out in a panic attack. Usually Gerard just cried “The Bad Man, The Bad Man” over and over and whimper something about a table… He never said anything about what the Bad Man did or who he was. Bert guessed it wasn’t hard to imagine, really. 

But he’d never said Master before. He’d never collapsed like this before, no matter how high or how drunk he got.

Bert was left watching him helplessly, holding onto Gerard’s wrists hard enough to leave bruises because he wanted Gerard to quit attacking himself. 

It felt like hours before Gerard finally calmed down and Bert could let him go—and by that point he didn’t want to discuss it anymore. He didn’t want to say anything about Gerard finding a job or ask him who this “Master” was. He just wanted Gerard to go back to the way he had been, smiling and walking around in circles talking to his little brother on Bert’s cell phone. 

Anything was better than this…

Gerard wouldn’t even look at him. Bert honestly didn’t think Gerard could _hear_ him offering words of comfort. 

Gerard just kept crying over and over that he was trash, that he was useless—that he was sorry but knew “sorry isn’t good enough.”

Who did this to him? 

Jeph and Quinn, if they saw it, would say Gerard was faking it for attention. They’d say he was playing the victim card to get out of an honest day’s work—but Bert knew that wasn’t true. Gerard sounded like he was quoting someone, like the words had been beaten into his head by someone. Some old boyfriend, maybe.

Or maybe…

Gerard said he ran away at fifteen because he didn’t get along with his father. Maybe his father had abused him—Oh, God. What if his father _molested_ him?

Bert wanted to get sick…

After what seemed like hours, Gerard finally stopped talking and just cried—quietly. 

He sniffled and stared at the floor in front of Bert while Bert held his wrist still, and made no other motions at all. There was a hazy, distant look in his eyes—the same one he got when he had night terrors—and Bert waited until the fog lifted in his gaze before trying to talk to him again.

“Hey, hun… You feelin’ alright?” Bert asked, his voice shaking a little as Gerard finally looked up at him.

“I-I don’t… I don’t know what just happened,” he said before looking around as if he just noticed they were sitting on the floor.

“I...don’t either,” Bert said, letting go of his wrists and frowning at the dark red marks he’d left behind. Gerard stared at them too, then looked back at Bert sadly. 

“Did I hurt you?” He asked, like he really had no memory of what had just played out.

“No! No, you didn’t hurt me. You scared the shit out of me… We need—we gotta talk. You’ve gotta tell me what’s happening so I can...so I can fix all this. So this doesn’t happen again,” Bert said, gesturing to the space between them. 

“I… I need to get you money,” Gerard said, his speech slurred and fractured as he slowly started to stand up. “You needed money, right? That’s...that’s the last thing I...”

He was wandering over to the mattress and Bert thought for a moment “good, he’s going to lay down and relax,” but then Gerard was digging around in a hole that hadn’t been in his mattress before Gerard came into his life, and pulled out several bills and that fucking black sketchbook.

He came back over to Bert who had gotten to his feet, and handed him the cash with a shaking hand. 

There was barely fifty dollars and he acted like it was some sort of jackpot.

“I kept some… For a bus ticket or food when you kick me out,” he said, looking at the floor. “You can have it.”

Then he started walking toward the door like he was going to leave, grabbing his leather jacket off the arm of Bert’s couch.

It felt as if everything were happening in slow motion, and he didn’t mean to grab Gerard as hard as he did when the man started opening the door. He snatched his wrist again and squeezed it so hard Gerard collapsed onto the ground, clutching at his arm just beneath Bert’s fingers to fight the pain.

Bert let him go, but stayed between him and the door.

He loved his weirdo… Gerard was the first person who really seemed to _understand_ him. He was the only person who didn’t judge him for talking too much about the scars from his last relationship, or for taking too many drugs at a time, or for trying to fix his issues with alcohol. Gerard couldn’t just _leave._

“I don’t want you to go,” Bert said, then tossed the dollar bills aside onto the floor. “I don’t want your bus money… I just said to get a job. Why does that scare you?”

“I’ll get you money,” Gerard said, staring at the floor. 

“Why are you afraid of having a job?” Bert repeated.

“I-I told you, I’ll go get you money,” Gerard said, looking up at him desperately. 

He didn’t mean a job, he either meant selling his ass or robbing someone. It made Bert sick. That was how he’d lived on the streets for so long—trading himself for a place to sleep. Ever since he was fifteen…

God, the kind of monsters he must’ve met out there. No wonder he had night terrors, no wonder he stammered about Masters and “The Bad Man.”

“Why won’t you get an actual job instead of selling yourself?” Bert asked, staring Gerard right in the eye. Gerard didn’t dare look away from him, either. He opened his mouth, whimpered, and then started to cry again.

“I’ll get you—”

“Answer me!”

“Because I can’t! I don’t like people, Bert! I can’t be alone out there!”

“You’ve been alone since you were fifteen! What do you mean?” Bert asked, desperately trying to understand. He wanted to fix this. Whatever was broken in Gerard, he wanted to fix it together. “Do you even know what you’re saying?”

“I-I… I take care of you. That’s my job. That’s what I’m here for.”

“Gerard, you’re an adult _man._ You’re not a housewife…”

“I know, but… Isn’t it better that way for you? I-I don’t see anyone else, I don’t talk to anyone but you. I’m yours. All day—just yours. I don’t have any problems or anything to distract me from you and what you need. That’s what I’m for...” 

He looked so sad, and _still_ Bert didn’t know what he was talking about…

Bert swallowed hard and stared at the floor a minute before forcing himself to ask it.

“Who is ‘Master’?”

“You are,” Gerard said. Immediately. 

Bert shot him a look and Gerard didn’t even blink—he just stared. 

“I… I am not,” Bert said, laughing uncomfortably. “What are you...what are you getting at? What are you even...talking about,” he finished, sighing heavily and rubbing his face. “I’m not into that kind of shit,” he said, helplessly. “I just want a partner—I liked you because we’re equals. Because you’re like me—you get me. I don’t want so freaky S and M shit going on...I just want us. Is that...not going to be enough for you?”

“Anything you give me is enough. Anything! I’m sorry—I won’t say it again… I-I don’t know what happened. I… I’ve never had a job. Not...not really. Um—Bert?” He was starting to sound frantic and when Bert looked at him again, he saw a frightened animal staring back.

“Yeah?” Bert was exhausted, but still afraid of what the man would say. 

“I-I was… I-I…” He looked like he was choking on the words he was trying to say. He was trying to confess something—say something real—but the words wouldn’t come out. It looked like he was trying to cough up razor blades. “A-At fif-fifteen…h-he took me. H-He took me a-and...and I c-couldn’t get out.” Gerard took in a shaking breath, tears still running slowly down his cheeks. 

Bert wanted to ask more, but he couldn’t. It hurt him too much to see Gerard in so much pain. 

“Forget I said anything,” Bert said, grabbing Gerard and pulling him into a hug—just to shut him up and make him quit stammering. “Forget it. Just stay. The past is the past, right? Let’s just...have now. Let’s just be us. Like this. I want it to just be us.”

Gerard started hugging him back and buried his face in Bert’s neck, shivering and trembling even after Bert led them over to the mattress and laid down with him. 

“I don’t want things to change,” Gerard whispered after a long, long time.

“What’s gonna change?” Bert asked.

Gerard didn’t answer… That was fine; Bert felt he already knew.


	4. Swallowing The Blue Pills

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for showing interest in this story so far! In my original, I was really afraid to write Bert the way I wanted to (the way he is in this version), because I worried people would want him and Gerard to end up together or that they'd be disappointed in how their relationship progresses. I know their partnership is very toxic and it can be hard to read sometimes, but I appreciate all the feedback you guys have been offering and I'm really excited for the rest of this story! Thanks so much, everyone! Much love!!!

Bert let Gerard have two days to simmer down before he decided he couldn’t wait any longer. The day after his breakdown, Gerard spent the whole time cleaning—picking at even the tiniest specks of dirt in Bert’s bathroom—and if he wasn’t cleaning, he was huddled up against the side of the couch with his head buried in his knees. 

Bert left him alone about it, not wanting to stress him or trigger him again, but when the next day was much the same, he couldn’t take it.

This wasn’t _Gerard._ This wasn’t his little weirdo who smiled all the time and drew sketches and asked Bert’s opinion on lyrics. This was something else…

It was a side of himself he’d never shown Bert before and Bert was afraid of it. Afraid of him…

On the third morning, Bert invaded Gerard’s shower and helped him wash up—hoping the gentle intimacy might bring back more of the man he’d grown attached to. He washed Gerard’s hair for him, let the man press back against him and moan in the seductive, soft little way that he did, but didn’t take things any further. He wouldn’t let Gerard get on his knees and didn’t accept the invitation when Gerard braced himself against the wall and sent a particularly erotic look over his shoulder at Bert.

It felt like a con. Bert felt like he was being played when Gerard acted like that now. 

He’d seen something in the other man that he’d been trying to keep hidden this whole time, and now he didn’t know what to believe. It drove him mad not knowing if this man that he was so enamored with was even who he claimed to be.

Or if he was even interested in Bert and not just using him as a stepping stone onto someone more his style. 

After all, he had that outburst about Masters and Bert had taken note of the faint white lines than ran horizontally across Gerard’s upper thighs like scars from a cane...or a belt.

Was he into that kind of freaky shit? And if he was, why didn’t he ever mention it to Bert? Why didn’t he ever imply he liked it or ask Bert to play rough with him some nights? He knew Bert was out of his element screwing with another guy—he had to understand it was his job to let Bert know what he was comfortable with and if there was something more he needed.

Or was he wrong in assuming that and the scars were from something else—something traumatic?

“I want to talk,” Bert said after drying Gerard’s hair with one of the fluffy gray towels. 

“Should I get my pants on first or are we talking body?” Gerard asked, trying to avoid the issue in his own way. 

That was his game, Bert realized. Any time anything ever happened between them, he tried to get Bert turned on and change the subject.

“Probably get pants on,” Bert said. He watched Gerard’s face in the bathroom mirror—and watched Gerard watch him as he heaved a disappointed sigh. 

They both got dressed, then sat side by side on the mattress because Gerard refused to walk over to the couch when Bert asked. He seemed to know already what their talk would be about, and he was picking at a tear in his jeans as Bert tried to come up with what to say.

“You know, you really scared me the other night...when you acted like that.”

“I’m sorry,” Gerard said. It was automatic. He didn’t discuss things, Bert realized. He just apologized now.

“I didn’t know what to say to you or how to help you. I still don’t… I don’t really understand what happened.”

“I had a panic attack. They happen sometimes, but I’m fine now. Really,” Gerard said, looking at Bert briefly before going back to the white thread he was pulling out of the knee of his jeans.

“But why did it happen? I want to understand so we can work on it. I don’t like seeing you that way and I don’t like you trying to play it off like it’s no big deal. It freaked me out. It was a big deal for me.”

“I…” Gerard took a deep breath and glanced at Bert again before returning his focus to his jeans. “I lived with a guy for a long time. His name was Les… I didn’t call him Les—I called him Master. He owned me...for a really long time.”

“Like—Like S and M owned or...or what? What are we talking about here?” Bert asked, glad there was a name now. Glad there was actually a person and not just this ambiguous title of “Master.”

“Um… I-I don’t...I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Why?” Bert asked, feeling almost frustrated at Gerard’s complete inability to open up to him. Bert had told him literally _everything_ about his life, but Bert didn’t even know Gerard’s last name…

“It’ll change things,” Gerard said, his shoulders dropping suddenly. “I guess they’re already ruined anyway, though. Aren’t they?” 

“How? What’s ruined? I never said anything was ruined, Gerard! I just want to understand you. That’s why I wanted to talk—so we could build this relationship. I want you to trust me with these things. I don’t want you to be afraid to share things with me because things might change.”

“I wasn’t homeless at fifteen,” Gerard blurted out, like he didn’t hear a word Bert said to him. 

“Okay,” Bert said, feeling that like a slap to the face. The first thing they bonded over...a lie.

“I lived with Les.”

“So you just...ran off to be a with a boyfriend? You hooked up with that guy and things weren’t good?” He tried to hide his irritation, but he knew Gerard could sense it and the other man scooted a few inches away on the mattress. 

“Um… I was bought by him. I-I was sold to him… They—They sold me to Les and I lived with him and… And I lived with Marcus and Adam and then The Bad Man showed up and everything was ruined.” Gerard started crying as he said it, but was defiantly staring at the wall as the tears rolled down his cheeks—trying to bite back the sob Bert could see ripping at his throat. 

“Bad Man? From your nightmares?”

“I-I can’t talk about this,” Gerard said, squeezing his eyes shut and starting to tremble. 

“That’s fine. I-I think I get it… You—You were, like, pimped out to him? Like a...like a sex ring? Like child...porn or something?” Bert asked. He didn’t really believe it. He _wanted_ to, but he didn’t… It didn’t make sense. Weren’t kids groomed for that from birth? Weren’t they usually immigrants or orphans? It just didn’t seem feasible for Gerard’s parents to wait until he was fifteen to sell him to some weirdo creep. And what about Mikey, his little brother who he called all the time? Did they choose not to sell him? Why was he spared? It didn’t add up.

“I didn’t tell you because I don’t want you to treat me differently. I… I just want a partner who doesn’t beat the fuck out of me every day.” He sobbed then and Bert believed that part. “I am so tired of being afraid of everything—being afraid that you’re going to get high one night and beat me to death or that your friends will. Tired of thinking you’re going to get bored of me and push me back out on the street. I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you’d be like _him_ and try to make me go home. I don’t want to! They look at me like I’m filthy—like I’m ruined and I’m not! I’m fine! I’m perfectly fine—I can be a good partner to someone. I’m still useful,” he cried. Bert couldn’t get a word in the whole time to comfort him or shush him.

Where was this coming from, he wanted to ask. Where did he get off saying he was afraid Bert was going to get high and beat him? He’d never laid a hand on him! 

But the more he talked, the more Bert started to believe—the more he started to trust—that whatever Gerard was saying had to be true. Maybe it wasn’t feasible, but...he seemed genuine. He didn’t know what guy Gerard was talking about who tried to send him home to his family, but he probably had a point...a reason. If he was sold…

The cleaning, Bert thought. The obsessive fucking cleaning. The way he prepped meals—the way he always waited by the door for Bert to get home. Never complained, never left the apartment alone… Bert always joked he was like a housewife, now he felt he’d been looking at it wrong.

A house slave… All he knew how to do was take care of the house and the master of the house. He was afraid of crowds, he was afraid of strangers touching him, he was okay with Bert cheating on him with a bimbo in a drunk rage… A house slave.

“How long were you with that guy?” Bert asked, taking Gerard’s hand and pulling it away from the hole he was ripping into the knee of his jeans. 

“Most of my life,” Gerard said, slowly—like he was really thinking over the words. “Since I was fifteen until...The Bad Man.”

“What did the Bad Man do?”

Gerard’s entire body shuddered and Bert squeezed his hand tighter.

“You have nightmares about it all the time. It’d be better if you just let it out… Scream it if you have to. Write it if you have to...” Bert said, feeling his heart start to pound as Gerard scooted closer to him and gripped his hand like a vice. 

“Master—Les, I’m sorry! Les—I meant Les… Les went away on business and sent...sent the Bad Man to watch us. I guess so we wouldn’t leave. He wasn’t allowed to touch us… Fuck!” Gerard let out the most pained noise Bert had ever heard from him and he buried his face in his free hand. “I wasn’t supposed to… H-He wasn’t—Master shot him for it. Master shot him for it and then threw me away like trash. I didn’t do anything wrong! I-I fought so hard. I did everything right and—and the Bad Man...”

Bert was torn between wanting to know and telling Gerard to stop before he went into another panic attack. He was crying so hard now and Bert felt like his fingers were going to break in the other man’s death grip. Gerard might be lying about being sold into some pedo ring, but whatever he was living through behind his eyelids at that moment had happened. The Bad Man was real and it only gave Bert a small bit of satisfaction to know that man had been gunned down.

“You...you slept with the Bad Man?” Bert asked, thinking that had to be it. There was nothing else for him to have done that would’ve made Gerard’s lover kill him.

“I didn’t want to! He had me strapped down! I couldn’t move—I couldn’t fight him. I tried! I tried and it didn’t make a difference...” 

The table—he always mumbled about the Bad Man and the table… He’d been strapped down to a table and raped? _That_ was what he was saying? _That_ was what he had nightmares about every night?

Bert couldn’t handle it. It was too much—too much that didn’t make sense and too much that fit so perfectly with how his little weirdo behaved. He wanted so badly to understand, but he couldn’t take anymore. He didn’t want to hear anything else about it. He wanted Gerard to be quiet. 

“I wish Les had shot me too… He thought about it. I know he did—I know he wanted to. I wish he just did it. I want this all to be over,” he cried, pulling his hand away from Bert and covering his face completely. 

Bert couldn’t think of anything to say. He just watched Gerard fall apart and hated himself for being silent and helpless as it happened. 

( ) ( ) ( )

Gerard didn’t send any postcards for over a month and Frank was getting anxious, even though Mikey insisted it was because of a break in the tour. He got to talk to Gerard on the phone, but for Frank those postcards were his only connection to the other man. He wished he didn’t care about what happened to him—but he did. And for him, Gerard’s silence was something to fear. 

Then when Gerard and Bert were slated to be in Texas for a concert, Mikey got a postcard and Frank received nothing.

“It’s just got a drawing on it,” Mikey explained. “I think it’s him with a bag on his head—or supposed to be him. I don’t know. It’s like a little cartoon guy.”

“Embarrassed about something, maybe,” Frank said, trying not to let on to how disheartened he was not to have gotten anything this time.

“I keep looking it over to see if there’s any clues, like little hidden letter or something, but...there’s nothing. I don’t get it. Bert ignores it every time I try to call.”

“Strange,” Frank muttered. He was exhausted after a seventy-hour work week and just wanted to sleep—especially now that it appeared his and Gerard’s bond was well and truly broken. 

He didn’t know whether to be relieved that the messages stopped or disappointed. In a way, he kind of wanted to stay in touch—just to know if the man he saved was still alright, but at the same time he could barely stand the pain it caused him to think about it. 

Maybe it’d be better if he could just forget—take Mikey’s name out of his phone, move apartments, and never think about it again.

He thought long and hard about that for the next few days and probably would have made up his mind to change phone numbers and block Mikey from ever getting into life again...if not for the box waiting outside his apartment door when he got home.

It was mailed from Houston, Texas and dented all to hell with a clearly made-up return address of Gerard Way, Saxton Hotel, Room 1111, 1212 E Left Rd., Houston, TX 77003. 

The box was small and light, and Frank hands shook as he carried it into his apartment. As soon as he closed the door, Frank started ripping the tape off, both terrified and intrigued at the thoughts of what would be inside. 

On top of the contents was a postcard and a sealed, blank envelope—a letter. Under that was a T-Shirt for a band Frank had never even heard of before, a notebook, and sketch of Sweet Pea done in charcoal.

What the hell was wrong with him? Frank wondered. Why the hell did he start off with sending postcards saying “I don’t love you anymore,” and then do something like this? 

Frank grabbed the postcard that had been in the box and flipped it over. Just like the one Mikey had received, this one had a drawing of a cartoon man with a bag over his head. Only Frank’s had a noose around its neck and its feet pointing down as if the character had hanged himself. 

_Why do I even bother talking?_ The postcard read.

Frank carried the box and its contents over to his couch, then sat down to open the letter.

He didn’t know what to expect from it, whether it would be nonsense or coherent. He was scared to see what it would say, but he didn’t hesitate. It scared him then when the first thing he saw in the envelope were two tickets to a concert in NYC along with a folded up sheet of notebook paper.

_Frank,_

_I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken all your cash. I hope one day I can repay you for your kindness and make it all up to you. I’ve been with a lot of people since I left. Some ok, some not so great. I’m sure if you still talk to Mikey at all he’s told you about Bert. He’s good to me most days. I love him, I think._

_He won’t keep me around though and I’m so afraid of what’s going to happen when he decides he doesn’t want me anymore. I’m afraid all the time now. I haven’t felt safe since I left you, but I had to go. I knew you didn’t love me anymore and it’s not your fault. I’m sorry I took all your cash. I was just mad because you didn’t love me and I was too blind to see that it was my fault and not yours._

_The same thing happened with Bert. I told him the truth about me and he hasn’t looked at me the same way since. I know he doesn’t love me. I know it’s not your problem and you probably don’t want to hear it. I shouldn’t bother you, I know. I just miss you. I feel so alone out here. I wish I never came out here. I wish I didn’t leave you. I just loved you too much for you to not love me back. All I wanted in the whole world was to be with you and I pushed you away. Just like I did with Bert. The only people I don’t push away are the ones who beat me. I guess they just know how to keep the monster in me from lashing out._

_I know I’m the last person in the world you want to talk to, but I’d really like to see you again. I’ve been trying to get some money together to pay you back for what I took. I should have more soon if Bert doesn’t take it. I got you and Ray a ticket to the concert in the city. I didn’t know if he’d want to come or not._

_Please don’t tell Mikey. Don’t bring him to Bert’s show. I can’t face him. Assuming you come. I will pay you if you do, in cash. I’m so sorry._

_Gerard_

Frank had to have read the letter three times over before letting it fall back into the box along with the tickets.

What in God’s name made him think Frank quit loving him? Frank knew he was unstable, but there was never a minute of their time together that Frank could place where he’d ever said anything or done anything to suggest that he hated Gerard or wanted him gone for good—or that Gerard had pushed him away with affection. Sure, he could act crazy sometimes, but Frank didn’t resent him for it. So why did he think Frank asking him to move home was out of hatred? All he’d ever wanted was to see Gerard get better—not chase him off. 

Frank returned his attention to the box, picking up the notebook that was left in the bottom. He anticipated more sketches, but the lined paper all held little poems—lyrics, Frank realized—some scratched out, some circled. There was a sticky note on the back saying “Please hold this for me. Quinn thinks it’s Bert’s and keeps taking it away.”

For the next two hours, Frank did nothing but turn over the pages of the completely filled notebook—taking in every word and every line, deciphering them, imagining them if they were to be sung.

He’d never heard Gerard sing...he’d hum sometimes or murmur to himself, but never outwardly sang. 

He wanted to call Mikey, but decided against it. Instead, for the first time in months, he called Ray.

“Hey! You’re back from the dead. Everything alright?” Ray asked.

“I got a package from Gerard,” Frank said, wondering if he should’ve instead made small talk first or at least asked Ray if he was busy before unloading his baggage onto his only friend.

“Oh… Is everything alright?” Ray asked again.

“He wanted you and me to come to a concert he’s going to be at in the city. It’s in a couple months. Do you...want to go? It’s a...I think it’s a Wednesday night.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? I mean...he kind of left you high and dry, Frank. I don’t want you to put yourself in another bad situation.”

“No, I know. He wrote me this letter saying he’s sorry for everything and that he wants to pay me back for the money he stole.”

“Do you really believe him?”

“I want to. His letter… I-I don’t know,” Frank said, rubbing his forehead. He was letting himself be drawn back into Gerard’s web again. Like a moth to a flame. “He sounds different. I think reality finally had a chance to catch up with him and...I think he’s figuring out the world isn’t as forgiving as I was.”

“Ah, I don’t know, Frank. I’m worried about you. You’re my best friend and you haven’t been yourself since he disappeared on you. I don’t want you to cut him out if you really think he’s changed or learned his lesson, but I’d hate to see you get hurt again. I mean, what if he just pays you some cash and disappears again? He’s dating someone else, right?”

“Gerard’s unstable. He doesn’t date,” Frank said, avoiding the question. What did he hope to accomplish by seeing Gerard? Or would he even get to?—They were just plain tickets, not backstage passes. How did Gerard even expect to find him? Wait by the doors when they let everyone in?

“If you want to go, I’ll go with you. Don’t get me wrong. Just...take care of yourself, okay?”

“Yeah,” Frank said, looking at the letter and the tickets again. 

_All I wanted in the whole world was to be with you and I pushed you away._

That line struck a chord in him. He felt like Gerard had it all wrong… Frank was the one who should’ve been saying that. Frank was the one who loved Gerard so much that it hurt to see him in pain so he pushed him away...and lost him.

“Yeah, I gotta go,” Frank said. 

“Okay. Well...Let’s hang out soon, okay? Have a game night or something next time you’re off,” Ray said, sounding desperate.

“Yeah. I’m off...Tuesday. I’ll text you,” Frank said, and ended the call.

( ) ( ) ( )

Bert wouldn’t lie. Things had changed. The way he saw Gerard changed, the way Gerard acted had changed… Things were different.

He still loved his little weirdo, but he couldn’t help but see him in a different light now that he knew the truth. After the night Gerard confessed everything, they never spoke of it again. Gerard didn’t add any more details and Bert never dared bring it up. He never mentioned looking for a job or told Gerard to work on his issues. He just let it be. 

He let Gerard clean his apartment and cook his meals and draw in the little sketchpads all the time with the supplies Bert gave him. It took a while before Bert was able to sleep with him again, but once they got past that awkward “first time in a while” stage, things went back to being somewhat like they were before.

Bert just wished he never asked—never pushed it. He didn’t want to know. He wished he didn’t know. It was too much for him to handle because he hadn’t the slightest clue how to cope with that sort of trauma. His ex had never had any of the issues Gerard did… He knew how to handle Daddy issues and body image issues and “my best friend is a such a total bitch” issues, but he didn’t know how to fix _rape trauma._ He didn’t know a thing about sex trafficking or the horrors Gerard must’ve endured. He didn’t sign up for that…

But Gerard acted as if it didn’t bother him when Bert had nothing to say on the subject and if he wasn’t freaking out from a nightmare, he acted as if there was nothing wrong with him at all. Maybe, Bert dared to think, he and Gerard could pretend none of it ever happened…

When it came time for the tour to start up again, Bert was increasingly nervous about how the guys would take being stuck in a van with him again—hoping they wouldn’t start a fight with him or bully him about not working. Now that he knew the truth about Gerard, it made his friends’ words against him that much more difficult to stomach. He wanted to scream the truth at them, but knew it wouldn’t fix anything. They’d tell him Gerard was lying—that he was full of shit and playing with Bert’s emotions.

And maybe he was… Maybe he was, but Bert wasn’t willing to risk it. If Gerard was lying, eventually the truth would come out. But if he was being honest and Bert called him a liar...there’d be no recovering from that. There would be no “I’m sorry, I was a dick” followed by kissing and making up—Gerard would just be gone. And Bert didn’t want that to happen.

It wasn’t easy keeping it in his head though. Especially not after the horrific experience they all had to endure because of Gerard at the airport…

Bert didn’t know why it happened, not sure how a crowd at an airport was worse than a crowd at a concert or at the grocery store—but as soon as they stepped into the airport, Gerard’s calm and placid demeanor vanished. He’d been fine up until they arrived. He never once mentioned being afraid to fly or having anxieties about the security there despite his weird ID with a name that wasn’t his. 

The IDs got him through the first round of security, but something happened—something Bert didn’t catch—as they sat in the plastic chairs waiting to get in line to stand in line some more. One minute Gerard was sketching and Bert was playing a game on his cell phone, then Dan was nudging him and when he turned his head, he saw that Gerard’s face was completely tear stained and he was crying as silently as he could while his pencil shook violently against his paper. 

“What’s the matter?” Bert asked him, putting a hand on his shoulder gently. Gerard just shook his head and acted like he was going to keep trying to draw, but his pencil lead tore the paper he gasped as if it’d been his skin that was ripped instead. “What’s wrong?” Bert asked again, looking around to make sure security wasn’t watching them or about to intervene. He did not want that kind of attention right now. He did not want asked why he was traveling with someone using false IDs… Or maybe they were his real IDs, maybe he lied about his name…

God, Bert wished he had a fucking clue.

Gerard let Bert take his sketchpad away and tuck it back into his carry-on bag with some of his other art supplies, then buried his face in Bert’s neck to cry it out while Bert’s friends looked at him with disgust and confusion. His behavior didn’t get any better, and as they were called to wait in line to go through the next round of security, he started to break down even further—barely keeping it together as the TSA agent patted him down.

“First time flying?” The man had asked, like he saw this kind of thing all the time.

“Yes,” Gerard answered, his voice shaking so much Bert really was impressed that security wasn’t called over.

“It’ll be okay. The odds of anything going wrong are slim to none. Worse comes to worst and you end up stranded in some other airport because one of the censors went bad and sent up a false alarm.” 

Gerard tried to reply, but whatever came out of his mouth didn’t sound like words.

It was worrying Bert to the point that he felt like he’d have a panic attack if something didn’t change. Then, while they waited in the busy lobby to be called to go wait for their terminal to open, Bert’s tour manager—Brian—came to him and handed him a small blue pill and a bottle of water.

“Give him this. It’ll shut him up,” he said, then walked away before Bert could say anything back to him.

He guessed it was worth a shot, and he knew it wasn’t like Gerard would turn down a pill he was offered for free. The guy would take just about anything so long as it didn’t come in a needle and he didn’t have to snort it. 

“Here. It’ll help,” Bert said, pushing the pill into Gerard’s shaking hand. 

“What is it?” 

“It’ll help. Just take it.”

“What is it?” Gerard asked again, looking at Bert nervously, then glancing around in a way that was too fucking suspicious for an airport.

“Just take the damn pill. You need to chill out. You’re attracting all kinds of attention.”

Gerard looked at him sadly, then did as he was told—finishing most of the bottle of water as he did. 

Bert didn’t know which horrid behavior he preferred, honestly—the crying or this doped up idiot. That was the only word to describe him… A fucking idiot.

He kept touching people after the pill kicked in and when he asked Brian why the hell he thought that would cause less attention, Brian just shrugged and pointed out at least three other people who seemed to be almost as out of it as Gerard. He wasn’t sobbing and he wasn’t screaming, so security left them alone.

If only Gerard would leave _Bert_ alone. He was chatty now that Brian had doped him, but nothing he said made any sense and he’d take short micro-naps on Bert’s shoulder. They’d last anywhere from ten minutes to half an hour, then he’d sit back up and act like he wanted to get up for something before the cycle started all over. 

By the time they finally got on their plane, Gerard collapsed in his seat next to Bert and passed out. He woke up a few hours later in time for their layover, and Brian was quick to make him take yet another blue pill...then another when they arrived in Florida. 

By that point, Bert was scared his boyfriend was going to die of an overdose even though Brian kept ensuring him Gerard would be fine. He’d sleep it off in the hotel and be fine.

So when they got to the hotel and Gerard could hardly walk straight and kept trying to put his hands on Quinn when they got to the hotel room, Bert was irritated and felt he would’ve rather handled the crying. 

“If he touches me one more fucking time, I’m going to break his hand!” Quinn snapped, slamming his luggage down onto the floor. 

“He can’t help it!” Bert argued, guiding Gerard over to one of the queen-sized beds in the room and laying him down. Gerard pulled Bert down with him, but instead of offering a kiss or anything worthwhile, he just hugged Bert weakly and then passed out again. 

“I don’t care! If he puts his fucking hands on me again, I’m breaking them! I’ll do it, too! Don’t fucking push me,” Quinn yelled.

“Yeah, what the fuck is Brian feeding him anyway?” Jeph asked, coming out of the attached bathroom while wiping his hands on his jeans. 

“Xanax I think...or something,” Bert said, unwinding himself from Gerard’s arms and sitting up. He wanted to change clothes—get a shower. He’d hoped on taking a shower with Gerard to get a moment alone with him, but that was obviously out of the fucking question. 

“You know, he asked if I’d trade him shoes in the airport bathroom,” Dan chipped in.

“Well he’s high as a kite. He doesn’t know what he’s saying,” Bert said, making his way into the bathroom and slamming the door. 

It was embarrassing, he realized. Having to dose his boyfriend until he was completely incapacitated just to get him on a plane was one of the most humiliating things he’d had to put up with. It wasn’t like drunk antics backstage or at a party—that was the airport! With officers and the media around every corner. One fuck up from Gerard and his band’s image could be ruined—they’d never escape the bad publicity if a doped-up groupie traveling with them made a scene at the airport. Why couldn’t Gerard just be _normal!?_

When he got out of the bathroom, Jeph and Dan were already passed out in the spare bed while Quinn was nowhere to be found. Bert watched Gerard sleep a moment, then tried to wake him up to see if maybe he could get him in his shower after all—get some fun out of him while he was high as hell. 

Gerard willingly got out of the bed and followed him, but kept sinking to his knees in the shower cube whenever Bert would get ready to stick it in. He tried to get a blowjob and Gerard just kept giving him these filthy looks, like the idea offended him in some way. 

What a fucking waste…

Bert ended up having to jerk himself off while Gerard sat on the floor of the shower either staring at him or playing with the beads of water on his skin.

“You know what?” Gerard said, his words slurring as Bert started washing off.

“What?” Bert asked.

“You only like me when you’re drunk,” Gerard said, ignoring it when Bert snapped that that wasn’t true at all. “But I like you all the time.”

“You don’t sound like it,” Bert said, biting back the impulse to ask if this was how Gerard planned to break up with him—high as shit on the floor of a shower in Florida. He was just messed up from the pills, Bert told himself. He was just messed up and he’d be fine in the morning.

“I think...” Gerard chuckled to himself and slumped against the wall a little more. “I think I’d stay with you forever. But everyone gets rid of me when I think that. Everyone sends me away… I don’t want go away.”

“No one’s making you go away,” Bert said, groaning as he made himself sit on the shower floor so he could soap up Gerard’s hair and clean him off. Gerard leaned forward against him and sighed.

“I was in love before...but not like this.”

“Yeah?”

“He wanted me to go home to my parents after my grandma died. I couldn’t.”

“Well, fuck him. Whoever he was,” Bert said, the conversation making him uncomfortable.

“Do you think...I could sing with you someday?” Gerard asked as Bert stood him up from the floor to rinse him off.

“You can sing with me any time you want. You never want to come out to karaoke at the bar, though. I’m not sure what else you want.”

“I mean on stage… Could I sing with you someday?”

The thought made Bert burst out laughing. 

“Hun, you can’t even handle an airport. How the hell are you going to sing on stage?”

“Master wouldn’t be at a concert… He was at the airport, you know? He saw me. He saw me watching him. I wonder what he’s doing in Utah. Master never said he traveled that far away.”

“Don’t start making shit up,” Bert said quickly. He refused to indulge the delusions. He didn’t know what game Gerard was playing right now, but he wanted no part of it.

“Maybe...it was someone else. I thought I saw Frank in Tuscon...at the laundromat. I’m not sure if I’m okay anymore.”

“You were never okay. Let’s just get you back in bed.”

Gerard whimpered as Bert dried him off with the towel and dressed him in some clean pajamas. The sound of him complaining was starting to set Bert on edge, but he was too tired to go looking for booze and the hotel room lacked a mini bar. He was forced to sleep next to him, Gerard not wanting to touch him for once, and had nightmares about the stage catching fire at his next show.

It was the beginning of the end.


	5. Epiphany

Frank was equally convinced that he wasn’t going the concert as he was convinced that he would go. He had requested the time off work, had gotten Ray to agree to come with him, but he didn’t know if he wanted to go or not… What would it matter either way, he wondered. He probably wouldn’t see Gerard—and if he did, what would it matter? What would change for the better?

Gerard promised to pay him back for the money he stole, but Frank wasn’t even sure he wanted it. He’d had over a year to think things through and the curse of love had been lifted from him. He cared for the other man, but...not like before. He was just a set of memories now—and a collection of notebooks, sketches, and postcards.

Frank received another few in the weeks leading up to the Spring concert in New York. 

He got one from Tallahassee with a bottle of blue pills on it (Xanax, Frank assumed) with the message “the blue ones help me fall” scrawled across the bottom. Mikey didn’t get a postcard from Tallahassee, but received one from Miami that had a normal “wish you were here” sort of message on it. 

After Tallahassee and Miami, Frank and Mikey both got a postcard from Savannah, Georgia. Mikey’s had a drawing on it of a woman with hardly any clothes on with no description whatsoever, and Frank’s had a prescription bottle of red pills spilling across it with “red ones make me fly” written in strange, swirling text.

He was getting worse, Frank realized. Before long, he’d be back to doing lines of coke—if he wasn’t already. Then what? This party lifestyle wasn’t going to last forever. Sooner or later, this Bert guy was going to drop him and move on to the next best thing...or maybe that’s what Mikey’s naked woman postcard had been about.

Frank hated that no matter how hard he tried to distance himself from the other man, Gerard stayed in the back of his mind. He just remembered how he’d looked that night on the stage—how he’d cried and pleaded and choked with his broken voice. He remembered how timid Gerard used to be, how afraid of the world he was...how he tried using a bottle of fucking salad dressing to tell Frank what his name was so he wouldn’t have to be the one to say it.

And now that man was out on the road with some rock star who couldn’t possibly give two shits about him if he was letting Gerard self-medicate with blue pills and red pills and God knows what else. 

The thoughts infected him like a fucking disease. 

“He’s going to end up dead,” Frank would think as he tried to sleep. “One of these days, he’s just going to take a bunch of pills and not wake up. And no one’s going to know who he is. And no one’s going to say anything. He’s going to die, and we’re never going to find out about it.”

It drove him mad that he still _cared._ He’d give anything, at this point, to go back in time and stop himself from going into that bar—stop himself from setting Gerard free of that hell because Gerard couldn’t _cope_ outside of it. He was safer with those men… They wouldn’t let him hurt himself like this Bert guy…

God, Frank just wished he didn’t care…

( ) ( ) ( )

Gerard hated it. He tried to go along with it, but he hated it so much. 

They were at a party in Charleston and Gerard was forced to watch as Bert chatted up some girl in the kitchen. It was just like how he and Bert had met, only this girl was petite and blonde and had big tits that Bert kept glancing at. 

Gerard couldn’t compete with her. There was nothing he could do.

It wasn’t the first time Bert had found a girl he liked. It wasn’t the first time they’d come to a party together and Bert had found a pretty little girl that caused him to pass Gerard the most pathetic puppy-dog stare Gerard had ever seen. He was asking permission to fuck her—that’s what was behind that look. And Gerard wasn’t allowed to say no.

So he would smile and pretend he was into it—ask stupid questions and talk Bert up like a wingman only to watch heartbroken from the sidelines as Bert chatted with the girl before disappearing with her.

He had to stand awkwardly by himself, hoping girls didn’t try talking to him—hoping men wouldn’t talk to him because the last time that happened, Jeph ratted him out to Bert and the asshole thought he had the right to get jealous. He could fuck whoever he wanted, but if Gerard so much as _glanced_ at another man, he had hell to pay...

So he’d stand alone and drink and smoke, sometimes swallow down a couple of the pills Brian gave him. Not the blue ones though—he saved those for concerts. He liked the red ones a lot. They kept him awake, kept him interesting and energetic for Bert to play with and do as he pleased. 

Bert quit liking him after the truth came out, Gerard realized, and the only thing that kept his interest (besides fucking at every opportunity) were the red pills. They made it so he didn’t give a shit. He barely remembered his own name when he took two of them—and if he took three… God, he was the life of the party and everyone wanted to be around him. 

But even now, after taking a couple pills and downing a few drinks, he still had no one to talk to and Bert wasn’t back from getting laid. He didn’t have a sketchbook and the music was too loud for him to be able to think. People kept bumping into him and spilling things on him and he hated it. 

He _hated_ it here. 

It felt like years had passed before Gerard realized they were back at the hotel, Bert was in the shower and Jeph and Dan were in the second queen bed. Quinn was rooming with Brian and some techs…

When did they leave the party? He couldn’t remember coming back to the hotel at all...

There was whiskey in the mini bar, but Gerard knew if he took it he’d never hear the end of it from their tour manager. Well, _Bert’s_ tour manager. Brian had nothing to do with him, really, except the pills he provided to keep Gerard sane. 

So Gerard forced himself to lay back on the bed, his head spinning horribly and his heart still pounding. There was no way in Hell he was going to be able to sleep tonight, but when Bert came and plopped down beside him—fixing to pass out—Gerard cuddled up closer and tried his best to hold still. 

It was hard, though...feeling Bert’s body so close to his own. Gerard still loved him, he really did… 

So he nuzzled into the base of Bert’s neck and kissed it gently, even when the other man told him rather firmly to stop. 

Gerard just held him tighter and kissed his neck, thinking back to how much better things were when they were back in Bert’s shitty apartment—about how much better things were when Gerard was back at Frank’s tiny place…

“Quit,” Bert growled again.

Gerard snuggled close and buried his face between Bert’s shoulder blades.

“Stop,” Bert barked.

Gerard, not really thinking he was doing anything at all, laid as still as he could and shut his eyes—hating how fast the room started spinning whenever he did.

“I said fucking quit!”

The vicious words were followed by a sharp sting across Gerard’s cheek—and then a dull ache in his forehead. 

“Get off me!” 

He’d been punched, Gerard realized, cradling his left eye which throbbed horribly. He’d been smacked, then punched. 

Bert hadn’t ever punched him before…

Gerard didn’t realize it until morning that he spent the entire night pressed up against the headboard, clutching onto his eye as blood dried and hardened the front of his t-shirt. The drugs were finally wearing off and he made himself get washed up in the bathroom before finding Bert’s room key and going out in search of ice. 

He did his best to nurse his own wounds, doing everything in his power to get the swelling to go down in his eye before Bert woke up and saw. It didn’t help, though, that the blow had been strong enough to break the skin on his cheekbone. It was hard to keep the bleeding from starting back up whenever he tried cleaning it, and the hotel room lacked a first aid kit.

He could probably ask Brian for something, but Gerard didn’t feel like waking anyone. Truthfully, he didn’t feel like talking… So he laid back down in fresh clothes, holding a towel full of ice to his aching cheek, and accidentally fell asleep.

( ) ( ) ( )

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Bert didn’t know why things had to change because, not even six months ago, he would’ve been happy to plan at least some semblance of a future together with his little weirdo. He didn’t honestly expect them to last forever and the very last thing on his mind was some same-sex marriage ceremony, but he thought they’d at least make it a year or two.

But as soon as Gerard started falling apart on him, Bert couldn’t keep up. He couldn’t cope. He tried his hardest to be there for Gerard and show him he still cared, but it never seemed like enough.

Tour was stressful for all of them and Gerard used to appreciate that. He used to be the one who always asked Bert if he was doing alright, let him vent and never judged.

Now, all Gerard seemed to want to do was pop pills and get drunk while Bert sang his heart out every night. And yeah, Bert knew it took a toll on Gerard when he would sleep with girls at parties or backstage at the venues, but what was he supposed to do? Gerard barely put out anymore and the sex had been his greatest charm.

Bert didn’t know if it was the stress of being on the road or the pills or the secret Gerard had let spill—but it wasn’t the same this time around. He felt his intrigue in Gerard slipping away little by little every night and it broke his heart.

He’d been so sure that he loved his little weirdo...now he wasn’t even sure if he _liked_ him. 

That being said, he never meant to _punch_ him in a groggy, drunk haze. 

For that, more than anything, he felt truly awful. 

Gerard had tried to lie about it, tried to do anything to imply it was an accident or that someone else at the party had caused the injury—but everyone remembered Gerard leaving the party uninjured. 

Bert didn’t really know how it happened, and Gerard was unwilling to speak on the subject at all, but Jeph said he remembered hearing Bert yell at Gerard to stop followed by the unmistakable sound of knuckles being crushed against someone’s face. 

Bert woke up with no recollection of that dispute, only to find Gerard passed out with a soaking wet and bloodied towel in his hand with a black bruise spreading across his cheek and temple—blood smeared down the side of his neck. 

It twisted Bert’s stomach and that image was branded in his brain every time he looked at Gerard now. 

Bert wasn’t a violent person… He wasn’t a bad buy. Gerard just brought out the worst in him.

“You know what you have to do,” Jeph said as he and Bert smoked outside a rest-stop in Virginia. Gerard was sleeping in the van while the rest of the band were stretching their legs and using the restroom. 

“What’s that?”

“Ditch him. Leave him somewhere. He’ll get by. It’s what he does, right? Makes up a new identity for a while and moves on. You don’t have any reason to feel like you _have_ to bring him with us. You’re not _obligated_ to keep him. He’s getting under your skin and he’s gonna ruin us. I can see it.”

“I can’t just ditch him in the middle of nowhere. He could die out here. I don’t want him to get hurt...I just want things to be like they used to be. He was fun.”

“He was just different,” Jeph said. “You liked him because he was the complete opposite from your ex. I’m sorry to bring it up, but that’s all he is. He was a rebound and you just… You got caught up in his game.”

“I guess.” Bert didn’t want to think that was true. He didn’t know why he was with Gerard or why that _man_ was able to make him feel things he hadn’t for so long, but he didn’t want it to go away. He wanted back what they’d had in the beginning and couldn’t see why it was gone. 

He didn’t want to accept that the moment Gerard spilled his secret, revealed the heavy baggage he carried with him, Bert couldn’t see him the same anymore. He couldn’t...handle that kind of information being thrown at him the way that it was.

“Bert, you’re straight. You like women—you’ve been fucking girls left and right since we left Tallahassee. What is he still doing on tour with us?”

“Well where else is he going to go? He’s homeless.”

“He gave your number to somebody. Just drop him off with them.”

Bert knew it would be for the best, but he couldn’t do it. He didn’t want to just give up on everything… He’d spent so much time with Gerard, let the other man so close that it would be a waste to see it all disappear into the unknown. 

But then again, break ups were never easy, were they?

“I hate what he’s done to you, man. I know life out here isn’t easy, but he’s making everything twenty times worse. This is _your_ time, Bert. You don’t have to share it with him when all he does anymore is bring you down.”

Bert finished his cigarette, staring at the van in silence. Jeph was right, but that didn’t make it any easier to swallow. He kept remembering the Gerard from before—the way he’d get excited at the smallest thing, the way he’d laugh and grin and seem happy about everything. He wanted _that_ back, not this drugged out zombie. 

Hell, ever since the plane ride to Florida, Gerard hadn’t gone a day without swallowing down a bar or two of Xanax. He’d turned into a fucking junkie… 

And it was Bert’s fault.

He was clean when he met Bert. He was clean and happy and wanted nothing more than Bert’s attention and good coffee. 

Bert just wanted him back…

After he finished his cigarette, Bert went back to the van and woke Gerard up in order to re-position them so he could lean against the window while Gerard slept on his chest. Bert kissed the bruise on his cheek while Gerard blinked awake and groggily snuggled up closer. 

“Where are we?”

“I don’t know. How are you feeling?” Bert asked.

“Tired,” Gerard mumbled, kissing Bert’s neck and settling back down to sleep. 

“Does your cheek hurt?”

“It’s fine,” Gerard said, placidly—like he wasn’t upset about getting hit at all. Bert felt like that should make him grateful, but it didn’t. It scared him somehow. Consequences didn’t seem to exist with Gerard. He bet he could knock his front teeth out and Gerard would still crawl back to him like nothing even happened… It left him feeling so guilty—so sick. 

He could do anything in the world to Gerard and it was like the man wouldn’t care at all, so long as he still had Bert’s attention.

( ) ( ) ( )

Something was going to happen.

Gerard could feel the monster in him growling the moment he stepped out of the van that morning in Richmond, Virginia. His cheek was throbbing from where Bert had punched it several days before, Jeph had been passing him dirty looks non-stop since he woke up early that morning…

He wasn’t wanted here—not by Bert’s band, not by his touring manager, and probably not by Bert at this point anymore either. He was sick to death of having to test the waters before making a move—sick to death of worrying about what the evening was going to bring him, about whether or not he’d be able to get close to his lover as the night drew near or if he’d have to keep his space. Pezz had been moody, but not like Bert.

Pezz would have nights where Gerard’s mere presence was enough to send him into a fit, but Gerard could usually tell when those explosions were coming. Bert was a different matter all together. 

In the mornings, he was fine. He was usually hung over and grouchy, but he liked to cuddle and sit close in the van so long as Gerard didn’t fidget too much. Mornings were the only thing that kept Gerard functioning on the tour.

But the afternoon was always hit or miss—either Bert would be excited for his show or he’d be anxious. If he was anxious, Gerard needed to keep his distance merely to keep his own heart safe. Bert would snap at him, say cruel things he didn’t mean or simply tell him to go away. 

The backstage rush before and during the concert was always the same. Bert was busy with his band and Gerard knew well enough not to bother him. He would either hide out in the green room or watch Bert’s show from the private areas screened off from the rest of the guests. If his anxiety was too bad and he didn’t feel up to taking one of the blue pills, Gerard would simply hide in the van until everything was over. 

It was after the concert that he never knew what to expect. Bert could be ecstatic—high out of his mind and drunk, wanting to play around and be affectionate with anyone and everyone he could get his hands on—or he could be frustrated and angry and looking for a fight. Gerard never knew what to do with him when he was like that—he didn’t know whether to try getting close to calm him down or whether to run for his life.

Sometimes if he tried to hide, Bert would only get angrier at being ignored… Sometimes he’d punch Gerard in an irritable, drunken daze like their last hotel night.

Gerard just didn’t know what the fuck to expect and it was making him crazy. 

He was tired of it. He was so exhausted—emotionally drained and physically spent. He did everything in his power to be accommodating to Bert’s ever-changing needs and the man repaid him with occasional bouts of love and endless _nervousness._ Gerard was living on eggshells hoping Bert’s mood stayed pleasant, hoping his concert went well and that the shit he swallowed or stuffed up his nose wouldn’t make him hostile.

Every day he felt tense, from the moment he woke up to the moment Bert exploded with either ecstasy or rage.

Something was going to happen, and Gerard was getting sick of waiting.

“Can anyone do their job right? Literally! Can _anyone_ around here just do their fucking job!?” Bert was yelling, anxious for his show tonight.

“Bert, calm down. You’re acting like a child,” Brian said, scolding him like a parents while managing to sound indifferent at the same time.

“Well if they would act like adults and _do their jobs,_ I wouldn’t have to!”

“Everything is going to be fine,” Brian said, smiling at Bert as if he were amused by the other man’s discomfort.

“It’ll be okay,” Gerard offered, touching Bert’s arm only to have the other man shrug him off. Bert didn’t say anything harsh to him or shove him, but it hurt as much as if he had. Gerard had enough. He was sick of this. Sick of being carted around, pushed to the side until he was wanted, and then thrashed for requesting the simplest of touches. 

All he wanted in the fucking world was to touch the person he cared about. Why the hell did Bert have to make it so damned difficult?—This constant giving and taking of affection. Gerard couldn’t keep up. He wanted all or nothing. He was so sick of feeling compelled to reach out and fearing rejection whenever he did. 

“If you don’t love me would you just come out and fucking say it!?” Gerard snapped, barely registering it as the words left his mouth. 

Brian looked at him in confusion and Bert looked so caught off-guard, his mouth hanging open a little bit as he paused from his never-ending bitching spree. 

“What are you even talking about?” Bert asked, finally finding his tongue again. “I’m not even talking about you! This has _nothing_ to do with you! God, you’re such a—a diva! You’re a Goddamned drama queen!”

“Me!? You’re the one always whining! Always giving everyone a hard time!”

“Okay—that’s enough!” Brian yelled, getting between them and putting a hand on each of their chests as if he really believed the fight would turn physical. 

“You’re the one who always complains! ‘Oh, Bert, you don’t love me enough!’ ‘Oh, Bert, you only love me when you’re drunk.’ Give me a fuckin’ break.”

“You won’t even touch me unless you’re wasted!” Gerard screamed, not caring who heard—not caring if Brian went deaf from standing in between them. Something needed to happen. Something had to change, because if he had to keep living like this it would be the end of him.

“News flash for you—I don’t like guys! I don’t fuck guys! Sometimes it helps to get wasted so I can forget _who the fuck I’m fucking!”_

The words hurt more than Gerard wanted to admit, and he felt the tears sting his eyes and he swallowed hard against them. He wanted to scream something back, something hurtful about Bert’s ex kicking him to the street, but words wouldn’t come. All he could do was swallow and blink—fight back the tears so he wouldn’t look as weak and pathetic as he felt.

“God… Why do you have to do this?” Bert said, pulling back and rubbing his eyes hard. “Not everything is about you—why do you have to make every little thing about _you?”_

“You two need to stop,” Brian said, finally getting out from between them and backing off a few paces. “Figure this out because one way or another, I want _this_ done before you go on tonight,” he said gesturing to the air between Gerard and Bert before walking away from them.

“You _can’t_ keep doing this, Babe,” Bert said, finally lowering his hands from his eyes. “It’s not about you. You make me say all this shit I don’t mean… Why do you have to get under my skin like that? Don’t you know I have enough people attacking me? I don’t need it from you, too.”

Gerard couldn’t say anything. He was still hurt, not believing Bert’s excuse that he didn’t mean what he’d said. He meant it… He had to. 

If a saint like Frank couldn’t stay in love with him, a sinner like Bert couldn’t either. 

“Why are you acting like this?” Bert asked.

“Why did you punch me when I tried to hold you? Why do you yell at me all the time?—Why won’t you touch me anymore!? I do everything you ask me to. What did I do wrong? Why don’t you love me?”

“I _do,_ weirdo!” Bert said, laughing and looking at Gerard pitifully. “You _know_ I’m just anxious for tonight, right? You know it’s not you… A-And about the punch...I-I was asleep, Hun. I didn’t mean it. It was a dick thing to do, but I didn’t mean to. I’d _never_ hurt you.” He took a step closer and put his hands on Gerard’s shoulders, stroking both side of his neck with the pads of his thumbs. “Baby, I’d _never_ hurt you on purpose.”

Gerard felt his bottom lip start to tremble, his heart wanting so badly to believe what his lover was saying. But it was all a lie. Bert was frustrated with him—tired of him. He’d say anything to get Gerard to shut up and go along with whatever he said. 

“Come on… Please don’t cry,” Bert said, sighing heavily. “Please don’t cry. If you cry, I’m gonna cry.”

Gerard’s chest felt so much tighter it was almost impossible for him to breathe, his heart aching as Bert leaned in and kissed him in front of everyone backstage. Usually he wasn’t one for PDA in front of other bands or at the venues and rather than comforting him, the intimate gesture just left Gerard feeling even worse. 

Either Bert was kissing him in a desperate attempt to shut him up, or he really felt compelled and genuine—which would make Gerard an ass for causing him to blow their cover at the venue. 

Gerard didn’t know what to believe anymore. He wanted _loved._ He just wanted love that didn’t bring with it pain and beatings. He loved Bert, but he didn’t want to have to pay for his affection with black eyes or have to spend his days on egg shells waiting to be snapped at and pushed aside. 

When Bert broke the kiss, Gerard buried his face in the other man’s neck—crying silently as Bert held him, sushing him and rubbing his back. 

“I’ve gotta get ready to go on, Honey… We’ll talk later, alright?” Bert tried to push him back, but Gerard wrapped his arms around Bert’s waist and held him tight. He wanted to stay like this. He wanted to stay safe in someone’s arms… He didn’t want Bert to walk off and start getting high. He wanted them to stay like this.

When Bert was holding him like this, he didn’t have to worry about what it meant when his partner said he needed to get wasted in order to forget who he was fucking…

No matter how tightly he clutched onto Bert, the other man managed to pry him off and left him alone to finish getting ready for his show. Despite the kiss and the gentle words Bert offered, Gerard still felt uneasy—especially as he watched from a distance as Bert got himself loaded and high in the green room. Gerard decided to stay sober that night aside from a couple beers. He didn’t want the red pills and wasn’t anxious enough to warrant taking a Xanax. He stayed sober and forced himself to think.

Think about himself and about Bert.

People cheered for Bert and he sang his bleeding heart out while Gerard stood out of sight and watched. Women cheered for Bert and reached up to touch him when he stood at the edge of the stage, right above the barricade. 

People wanted him…

People Gerard couldn’t compete with wanted him. 

It just wasn’t fair to know he belonged to Bert while Bert was free to come and go as he pleased.

He didn’t to share his partner. It wasn’t like the house with Master and Marcus and Adam. He wasn’t some little toy to be kept and used. 

As soon as he got off stage, Bert started puking into a trashcan and Gerard kept his distance and watched for once instead of immediately going to comfort him. When he stood back, he realized how disgusting this whole affair had become. 

Bert would puke his guts out, chug more booze, then go in search of his next fix or someone to screw. It wouldn’t be Gerard.

Gerard wasn’t ever his first choice anymore—not unless he was sober. 

How fucked up was it that he wasn’t even his own boyfriend’s first choice?

Gerard wanted more. He wanted more than half of a man’s attention. He wanted someone to love him as much as he loved them… He _loved_ Bert. He’d give Bert the world if he asked for it. But his world wasn’t good enough for Bert. His world wasn’t enough.

Again, as they piled into the van and Bert blacked out with his head against the window, Gerard found himself thinking about Frank. 

Why couldn’t he have just gotten out of bed? Why couldn’t he have just shown Frank how much he truly meant to him instead of giving in to his own weakness? He should’ve read more of the comics Frank brought him from home. Should’ve just worked on some sketches to prove he was still with it—still present in the relationship.

If he could go back and do it all over, he would try so much harder to prove his worth and his love—make the other man see that Gerard’s home was with him and not his parents. If only he could go back…

There were just so many things he could see now that he hadn’t realized back then. He could see the difference between a Master and a lover...and between a lover and partner. 

It wasn’t enough for himself to be committed to another man. That man needed to commit as well. 

Bert would never do that. Pezz hadn’t done it and Tommy hadn’t done it. 

Frank did though. Frank, who had no reason to keep Gerard at all, had been faithful. 

He’d been faithful and Gerard had ruined it.


	6. Home is Where the Heart is

Frank didn’t understand why the postcard he’d gotten from Kentucky left him close to tears, but he had been staring at it for close to an hour while his emotions swayed back and forth inside of him.

On one hand he wanted to rip it up, and on the other he wanted to hold it to his chest like the leading lady in a chick flick would with a letter from her boyfriend overseas. 

The words “I took you for granted and I’m sorry” were written across the bottom of the card, and above it—taking up all the white space—was a nearly perfect color drawing of himself. There was so much detail in every aspect of it. The way his hair clumped together, the different shades in his eyes, the tiny scar on his forehead, the shape of the scorpion on his neck.

He didn’t know what Gerard was trying to tell him and he was damned near close to begging Mikey to ask the next time the two talked on the phone. 

The words, the drawing… Gerard was proving that Frank was still very much on his mind, but why? Did he want them to get back together?

He had to know that was impossible, right? Not just because of the theft or the fact he’d been gone over a year… They couldn’t pick up where they left off because Gerard wasn’t even going to be the same person anymore. Frank didn’t even know if they’d even be able to be friends if Gerard was as hooked on the pills as his previous postcards implied.

Even so, the fact that he still remembered Frank’s likeness enough to draw him so perfectly was touching. 

He couldn’t help but wonder, though, what was bringing all of this about. Was he not happy with Bert anymore? Had something happened between them? Or was Gerard finally coming to terms with the realities of partnerships and relationships outside of the slave and master culture he’d been brought up in?

Compared to what he’d had with his Master and the dysfunctional nightmare he had to be living out on the road with Bert, his life with Frank had to seem perfect. Frank never held him accountable for anything, never asked anything of him, never raised a hand to him or cheated on him with women. Yeah, Frank imagined Gerard was probably missing that now.

“I took you for granted and I’m sorry.” How honest. No excuses this time—no “I wish you hadn’t stopped loving me.” Gerard realized what he’d done and took responsibility for it.

Frank guessed that meant Gerard was growing up.

Frank carried the postcard into his bedroom and leaned it against a bottle of cologne on his dresser so he could look at it from the head of his bed. He kept all the others in his kitchen junk drawer, but this one felt like a piece of art. 

The message on it somehow bringing Frank a sort of closure he hadn’t known he was waiting for. 

He took a picture of the card and sent it to Ray (who quickly replied with “glad he’s finally figuring it out”) then to Mikey.

“Lucky. Mine just says wish u were here,” Mikey replied.

Frank felt a built guilty when the comment made him smile. 

He’d gotten something special. Mikey may have a phone number to reach Gerard, but Frank had gotten a portrait—a portrait done from memory and an apology he didn’t know he’d needed.

But what did it mean… What did it all mean?

Frank knew if Gerard tried to come back, things would be different. Gerard would be different… He might look the same and sound the same, but he’d gotten his chance at freedom and must’ve learned how to express himself beyond the awkward and explosive gestures Frank had gotten used to. Gerard was going to have opinions—maybe ones that just didn’t mesh with Frank’s at all. 

Maybe they wouldn’t be a good match—not that they ever really were, Frank guessed. He must’ve been pretty sick himself to take in someone like Gerard and try to keep him, try to love him in that way. He had known Gerard knew nothing other than serving a partner… Hell, having sex with him could even be considered coercion, taking advantage of him—even if Gerard had come onto him first.

Frank had been lonely back then, and desperate. He may not have ever intended to, but it was clear his actions did more harm to Gerard and his family than good. If he’d just turned him over to the police right away, he would’ve gone home. His parents could’ve supported him. Mikey could’ve supported him… He would’ve gotten to spend more time with his grandmother before she passed and could’ve been better prepared for it. Maybe it wouldn’t have devastated him so badly if he’d been able to have more time with her…

But no, Frank had let himself get attached—had let himself believe the other man understood what it meant to be in love and have a partner. Selfishly, he kept Gerard close so he wouldn’t have to come home to his lonely apartment and his lonely life again. He had Sweet Pea, sure, but it wasn’t the same. He worked _so much..._ There hadn’t been time to meet anyone let alone fall in love. Gerard had been a pleasant escape from the hole he’d dug himself into. Gerard loved him easily...because Gerard didn’t know any better.

With those thoughts in mind, Frank’s good feeling started to fade away.

The New York concert was just under two weeks away and Frank was afraid he _shouldn’t_ go—that it might just cause more problems. 

But what if Gerard was expecting him? What if Gerard needed Frank to get out of the situation he’d fallen into? Frank guessed it wouldn’t hurt to go and try to save him one more time… 

Go back to New York and pick him up from the man who was mistreating him again. How ironic for it all to spin back to where it started. 

( ) ( ) ( )

Gerard sat on the steps outside of the Brooklyn hotel, smoking a cigarette while his hands trembled. 

He felt so gross right now… He felt so disgusted with himself—even more so than he had when picking up truck drivers in greasy rest stops and gas station diners. 

The things he’d been doing the past four nights left him wanting to rip his skin off. So many filthy, filthy things to get Frank the money he promised him. 

Bert and his band had gone out exploring the city earlier. Gerard tagged along for a little while, pretending everything was fine as Bert strolled with him through the art district and took him into the different shops in China Town. Gerard wanted to feel in love with him like he used to—wanted to feel that old warmth bubble up inside of him as they walked together—but he couldn’t. Not with Jeph and Quinn glaring daggers at him any chance they got. 

He wasn’t _wanted_ here, and he didn’t want to _be here_ any more. It felt good to have Bert walk with an arm around him and it was nice to have him offer to buy Gerard little souvenirs—but it was too late. 

So what if Bert was faithful tonight or the next three nights? He’d been cheating since Tallahassee and Gerard had started sleeping around once they reached Kentucky. He needed money to pay back Frank for what he stole, and though he knew the pills he took were worth more than his body, he couldn’t bring himself to sell them.

He _needed_ them.

He fucking hated himself for how much he needed them.

He was a mess most of the time and the Xanax knocked him out—forced him to behave. They made him sleep when the red pills made it impossible to sit still, they made him feel relaxed after the worst nightmares of his life woke him up in the van. He couldn’t bring himself to sell them, even though Brian seemed to have some sort of limitless supply to pour down his throat.

Once he took the Xanax though, or the Clonazepam, it was almost impossible to get motivated into doing much of anything other than sleeping or laying by himself in the van or a hotel room. If he wanted people to even _consider_ liking his company, he had to take the little red ecstasy tablets or the orange capsules of Adderall.

He couldn’t sell his drugs...they were the only thing keeping him human.

So he sold himself.

He was used to doing it once or twice a week out on the road, finding a new person and screwing them to get from one city to the next. He was out of practice, but it wasn’t unheard of. 

What he didn’t like was being used four times in one night by different men whose names he’d never learn, whose faces he already couldn’t remember. They’d been willing to use condoms, but that was about it...and it’d be hard to explain away the finger marks on his throat from the last man who decided to make it rough. 

His body hurt. His chest was tight… The alcohol in his blood seemed to be the only thing keeping him warm as the downside to his cocktail of uppers was starting to settle in.

He needed to get upstairs and shower before Bert got back, but the thought of standing made him want to scream...so he lit another cigarette and cried behind his sunglasses as he smoked it down to the filter.

The room was still empty when he finally did make it to the fourth floor of the hotel. He took his time stripping off his clothes, wincing at the bruises he could already see forming around his hips and his knees and his neck. As he stepped into the shower, the water swirling around the drain was tinted lightly pink and he hardly felt the pain and gross feeling was worth the six hundred bucks he’d made. 

What if Frank wouldn’t even take it?

What if Frank didn’t come to the concert at all? After all, why would he? Why would he come see the man who robbed him? The man he hated?

Gerard sank down onto the floor of the shower, crying like a child as the sick feelings bombarded him. He was dirty now… So filthy an animal like Bert didn’t even want to touch him. How was he supposed to win Frank back? How was he supposed to convince Frank to take a chance on someone as worthless and gross as him?

He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting on the floor of the tub, but he suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder that caused him to flinch away—curling against the cold, plastic wall.

“Hun, what are you doing in here? The water’s _freezing._ Come on… Get out.”

Bert was there, wrapping him up in a dingy towel and pulling him onto his feet. Forgetting, maybe, that he was soaking wet, Gerard wrapped his arms around Bert’s shoulders and sobbed into his neck. 

“Now what’s all this about?” Bert asked, his voice sounding so gentle. 

Why couldn’t it be like this all the time? Why couldn’t Bert just stay sober enough to still want him when they were out on the road?

“Babe, you’re gonna make me cry if you cry like that. Come on… What is it?” Bert started rubbing Gerard’s back through the towel—heavy, strong motions up and down until Gerard’s breathing finally slowed down. “Was I gone that long? Did you think I wasn’t coming back?”

“I love you,” Gerard whimpered, not able to form any other thoughts or words. Bert wouldn’t want to hear them anyway. 

“And that makes you cry?” Bert asked, chuckling anxiously as he pulled Gerard in a little closer despite how soaked his clothes were getting. “Little weirdo… What’s the matter?”

Gerard couldn’t think of anything to say to him, just relished the brief time Bert let him cling before he pushed their bodies apart and helped Gerard get dressed. 

Only then, after Gerard was dressed in night clothes, did he ask where the bruises on his neck came from.

“Did you fuck somebody?”

“No, Bert,” Gerard lied. He wasn’t sure why he held the truth back, really. Bert cheated constantly. Why did he have to be faithful?

“No?” Bert asked, looking at Gerard a bit worried then. He tilted his head to the side in the lost puppy-dog way that he did—the way that always left Gerard feeling weak—and frowned. 

“Got grabbed in the subway trying to get back to the hotel,” Gerard stammered out. “He knocked me over and grabbed my throat. He was trying to rob me but I left my wallet here. I had nothing for him to take.”

“He just let you go? Did he have a gun or something?” Bert asked, looking equally distrusting and concerned. 

“I don’t know. Some woman started screaming. I got him off me and I ran. Made me think of the Bad Man...” He knew once he mentioned that, Bert would leave it be. He hated it when Gerard mentioned anything from his past that wasn’t related to music or art or drinking. 

“Well are you hurt anywhere?” Bert asked, rubbing his fingers over the bruises on Gerard’s neck. It felt so strange to feel a gentle touch there after how hard the man had been squeezing as pulled Gerard back against him by his throat. 

“No...” Gerard whispered, sniffing back his tears and burying his face in Bert’s neck for a few more moments. 

Bert sighed heavily and started hugging him again. Gerard was quick to return it, squeezing with all his might as Bert kissed the side of his head.

“Why are you crying?” Bert asked again, his voice much softer this time around.

“I don’t think you love me anymore,” Gerard said, nuzzling the stubble on Bert’s neck while the other man stroked his back.

“I’m always going to love you. You’re my little weirdo.” Bert kissed the side of his head again, then pushed him back by his shoulders. “You need to stop this… I don’t know where it’s coming from. We did good today, right? We walked around, I got you that coffee you wanted… I know I get tense at the shows, but it’s not me, you know? It’s not me…”

“I’m just a junkie anyway,” Gerard said, not sure what he was implying or who he was talking to—whether the words were directed at Bert or himself. 

“You’re starting… You’re starting to have a _problem,_ but you’re not a junkie. It’s not that bad. I’ve been in this business a while. I’ve seen people worse than you. It’s not like you’re out snorting coke or shooting up heroin. You’re not out doing meth. It’s just pills. You and those fucking pills Brian keeps giving you… If you’d just quit taking them—”

“I _need_ them,” Gerard argued, trying to get another hug only to have Bert hold him back by his shoulders.

“Babe, you don’t… That’s the _pills_ talking. I know what I’ve seen, okay? I know I’m not one to judge—and I’m not! I’m not judging you. I wish you didn’t take all that Xanax shit and pass out on me every night, but we all do what we have to in order to get by, right? I’m not going to stop you and I’m not going to give up on you because you need pills to unwind at the end of the day. I just wish you didn’t take so many.”

It was a conversation Gerard didn’t want to have. Who was Bert to tell him to cut back? Honestly! The man couldn’t get by without sticking shit up his nose or knocking back liquor. 

And maybe that was just it. Maybe that was the whole reason why they stayed together. They could destroy themselves together and have someone there to numb the pain, someone to offer empty and unconditional love. 

He could survive off it, Gerard guessed, but not for much longer. He needed more… He needed what Frank had offered him. Real love—if there even was such a thing. 

“Lets go to bed, Hun. You need to some sleep,” Bert said, guiding Gerard over to their queen bed. Jeph and Quinn weren’t back yet, it seemed. Gerard wondered if Bert was going to head back out as soon as Gerard’s eyes closed.

Gerard wanted more than this…

When they lay in the bed together and Bert made no motions except to kiss him on the forehead, Gerard made up his mind. One way or another, this was going to be their last night together. He refused to spend another night like this, laying beside the person he loved and getting nothing—absolutely nothing—back. He didn’t care how filthy or gross he’d become. He didn’t care if he tried to win Frank back only to have the man spit in his face. He wasn’t staying here. 

( ) ( ) ( )

Bert couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to happen. Something was going on with Gerard and it scared him… It had him petrified.

From the moment they woke up in the morning, Gerard seemed to be a completely different person. There was a heaviness in the room that hadn’t ever been there before, a strange aura between them that Bert couldn’t place.

He got dressed and the whole time, Gerard had stood so close to him, touching him in a strange, gentle way—caressing his shoulders down his arms, stroking his ribs down to his hips.

Jeph and Quinn left the room first, carrying their bags with them down to the van waiting in the parking lot, but when Bert made a motion to follow them, Gerard resisted. He got between Bert and the door and looked as if he wanted to say something, but instead he just pressed their lips together and started kissing him far more intimately than any kiss they’d ever shared before.

It wasn’t hungry or lustful or wild—it was passionate. 

Gerard had one hand on the back of Bert’s neck, holding him still as their tongues caressed each others. The next thing Bert knew, they were in bed again. Gerard was holding him, gripping onto his shoulders as if he feared Bert was going to disappear. 

They were gentle with one another, nothing rushed or clumsy. In a way, it was like how they used to be back in Salt Lake City, before the touring and the drugs and the girls. Gerard kept kissing him the whole time, breaking away only to moan or gasp. It was so tender, so much more than just fucking and it made Bert feel like trash for how he’d been treating Gerard the past few months.

It was so clear to him now how much this other man actually loved him, how much Gerard had been trying to show it all along. He felt awful for every indiscretion, every time he’d give Gerard the cold shoulder at a venue, or think ill of him because of the pills Brian got him dependent on. 

When it was over, Gerard just clung to him—panting and shivering a little as he came down from his climax. Bert stroked his hair and pressed gentle kisses onto his neck, letting Gerard stay close—loving the feel of their bodies pressing against each other.

He could honestly say he’d never had it feel this way before—not between them or anyone else he’d ever been with—and it scared him as much as it soothed him. He didn’t want to leave the bed. He didn’t want to go to the venue and start working on set up with his bandmates and friends. He wanted to stay here. He wanted to spend more time with Gerard—maybe ask him what was going on or just let the comfortable silence go on unbroken. 

He wanted time to just stop for a minute because he felt as if he was on the cusp of some great revelation, but Gerard started pulling away from him and got dressed. Bert followed suit and they kissed again, just as gently, before leaving the room together.

Bert felt like he should hold Gerard’s hand as they walked, but he didn’t. 

He really should have.

In the van, Gerard sat with his head on Bert’s shoulder for the short ride to the venue. Bert wanted to follow him when he went to hide in the greenroom as set up started, wanted to kiss him and maybe go for a round two, but he didn’t.

As soon as he was done setting up, however, he hurried back to the greenroom and found Gerard curled up on the sofa acting as if he were asleep.

“Are you okay, hun?” Bert asked, sitting down at the foot of the couch by his legs. 

“Tired,” Gerard whispered, sounding far away.

“Did you take one of the pills?” Bert asked cautiously.

“No… I really need to just...feel what I’m feeling right now.”

“What are you feeling right now?” Bert asked, reaching over to start stroking Gerard’s hair. “I really liked getting to be alone with you this morning,” he added when Gerard didn’t reply.

“I want that all the time,” Gerard said quietly. 

“I’d fuckin’ love that,” Bert said. He wanted to smile, try to show some warmth, but he felt like something was wrong. Gerard didn’t act like this… Gerard was always a nervous wreck or clinging close. He didn’t just lay on filthy venue couches and act like he was trying to nap. “Are you sore from when you got mugged yesterday?” Bert asked when Gerard still didn’t speak, eyeing the bruises on his neck that had only gotten darker.

“I guess. Do you want to lay with me, Bert?” Gerard asked, his voice sounding so unlike his own as he pressed himself back into the couch to make a narrow sliver of space for Bert to lay down.

They got to lay side by side and hold each other for all of two minutes before the rest of the band burst in and interrupted. Bert tried telling them to get out, but they wouldn’t and the whole time Gerard just stared at him with this loving, sad, hazy look in his eyes.

That was when he realized something bad was going to happen.

He didn’t know what, but he could feel it.

( ) ( ) ( )

Gerard anxiously paced up and down the queue, his hood pulled up over his head in the misty, April rain. He had Bert’s sunglasses on even though it was overcast, afraid someone might recognize him from the night he spent out on the street trying to make cash.

He’d swallowed one of the red pills and his whole body was jittery—his mind hyper-aware of everything going on around him. Girls in too short of skirts and cropped tops, ripped up band tees and short shorts. Boys with colorful hair, faces full of piercings, tight fitting jeans… A couple of them were exactly the kind of boys Gerard wished he could meet.

Maybe one of them might take him home, but he doubted it would last more than a night.

So he avoided them and moved on—back and forth, back and forth.

It was only five-thirty and doors opened at seven, but the line was long and Gerard was searching for Frank. He kept his eye out for Ray as well, focusing on anyone who seemed taller than the rest of the crow, but didn’t see him. 

He would come, right?

Frank would come see him. Frank would save him, right? Just like he had before?

They would meet up in New York, in the city, just like last time and Frank would save him from this awful place.

“Hey, Bert’s looking for you inside,” someone said, startling Gerard and pulling him away from his repetitive, racing thoughts. 

“What?”

“Bert. He’s waiting for you inside,” the man said again, looking at Gerard with concern. 

“Oh… Tell him I’ll be in in a minute. I’m...looking for someone.”

The man looked confused, but made his way back into the venue while Gerard resumed pacing.

Come on, Frank. Come on. 

Please, please, please…

“Babe, what the hell are you doing out here? You’re soaking wet. Shit, take my coat. Take my coat, Baby. What are you doing out here in the rain? You’re gonna get sick.”

The next thing Gerard knew, Bert’s warm jacket was draped over his shoulders and he was being pulled back into the venue by his left hand.

“The staff was thinking you were some homeless person, Baby. Have you been walking around out there this whole time?”

“Wanted to get out… Wanted to stretch my legs,” Gerard muttered. It felt like the right thing to say as Bert sat him down on the couch in the greenroom.

“They told me you were just walking around the people in line. Were… Were you trying to pick someone up?” Bert asked.

When Gerard looked at him, he saw fear in the younger man’s eyes. It felt good to see him upset for once. It felt good to see him worried and jealous instead of just enraged. Gerard knew how to play this game and how to win, he just wished he didn’t have to. 

He wished he could keep Bert on this hook every day, not just a night or two before the drugs and partying took away his attention again. It would happen. It was a cycle, and Bert was a slave to it. As handsome and wonderful and creative as he was—as good in bed as he was—Gerard just didn’t see Bert being worth the pain and suffering anymore. 

It was Bert’s turn to be in pain. It was his turn to suffer.

“God, you’re soaked to the bone… Let me go get you one of our t-shirts.”

“I’m fine,” Gerard said, nuzzling Bert’s jacket.

The noise outside the greenroom seemed to explode, the venue blasting rock music just before the doors opened.

Gerard had been pacing the queue for hours and Frank never came. There was a chance he’d come later, maybe stuck in the awful city traffic, but Gerard just didn’t know. Bert wasn’t going to let him stake out the front door and he had nothing to help the staff identify Frank if he asked them to.

“Baby, what were you thinking? You’re soaked…”

“Do you still love me?” Gerard asked, sniffling from the cold more than his sorrow at losing the third man he’d come to love.

“Of course I do. More than anything.”

“More than drugs?”

“More than drugs! Of course!” Bert said, his eyes starting to look bleary. He was drunk already, wasn’t he?

“More than your ex?”

“Where is this coming from? What’s _wrong?_ Things were so nice this morning. I fucking felt things I haven’t gotten from you in a long time. Why… Why are you so upset?”

“You know...the night I got beat up at the house party? It was Jeph and Quinn. They did it. They wanted me away from you. Said I was bad… Said I was distracting you, using you.” Gerard loved the way Bert’s face widened with shock. “I didn’t tell you because I knew you wouldn’t believe me. But you deserve to know.”

“Why are you telling me now?” Bert stammered, his voice cracking a little as he began to look frantic. Gerard was destroying his little fantasy world, making him see the reality of the hell Gerard had been living in for months on end. “Did they say something to you? Did they threaten you?”

“I just wanted you to know.”

Bert didn’t say anything, but Gerard got to watch all the different feelings swirl through Bert’s eyes while his own remained hidden behind the dark sunglasses.

The first band started playing and Bert didn’t leave to go watch. He sat with Gerard on the couch, holding his hand and looking conflicted and hurt. 

“Quinn wouldn’t do that,” he said after a very, very drawn out silence. “Jepha might, but Quinn would never hurt anyone he knew I cared about.”

Gerard didn’t say anything, Bert yelled at him to say something, and then Bert had left the greenroom. He had to. His band came on next. 

His nerve endings still tingling, Gerard slid Bert’s jacket off his shoulders and stood up from the couch. He checked his jacket to make sure his two small sketchbooks were secured inside the lining of his jacket, made sure he had his wallet, and then left the greenroom. He paused at the side of the stage to watch Bert scream into the microphone for a little bit—his song not tainted at all by the conversation they’d just had—then he walked out and around to the general admission floor. 

He scanned the bar for Frank, stared at the crowd in the flashing lights in hopes of spotting Ray among the group of people, then made his way outside to the deserted street. The booming music inside shook the pavement beneath his feet and Bert’s voice still reached him as he started off down the black, rain-slick streets. 

Frank didn’t come.

It felt like a knife in his heart.

It hurt worse than any of Bert’s punches or slaps, worse than anything Pezz or the truck drivers had ever done, worse than the man the night before who had gotten violent...worse than Master. Worse than Trainer. Worse than the Bad Man. 

Frank didn’t come rescue him.

He’d been so certain Frank would be there, and he couldn’t go back to Bert now—not now that he’d pitted himself again Bert’s best friends. They’d never laid a hand on him, but it felt better to leave it on that note—better to lead Bert to think Gerard had run away in fear while Bert’s friends tried to convince him Gerard was a liar. Bert would never know the truth, so he’d always wonder about it. 

He’d always want to know what happened the night he pushed Gerard away and left him to get hurt. He’d always want to know where his “little weirdo” went when he disappeared into the night. 

His mind had started racing too much and Gerard forced himself to swallow down one of the blue pills with a cup of cheap, decaf coffee. There were grounds in the cup and that became all he could think about as he became woozy, coming down from his rushing high.

There were grounds in the already disappointing coffee cup.

Gerard just wanted to go home...


	7. Homesick

In the moment, Frank had felt that the best thing to do was skip the concert. In the moment, he’d convinced himself that going to see Gerard would either end in more heartbreak and disappointment, or ruin all of the progress Gerard had made in his recovery. Maybe he was in a bad spot because of the drugs and the environment around him, but if he’d gotten himself that far, it was in his own best interest he learn how to get himself out of it.

He couldn’t expect everyone to save him from his own mistakes forever.

At least that was what Frank had told himself as he backed out of going to the concert at the very last minute. He’d been in Ray’s car, ready for the drive to New York, then the doubt took over him and he changed his mind. 

He expected it to result in another postcard or a letter—maybe even a wordless sketch. Instead, he got nothing. No postcard from New York City, no letter from the next show or the city after that on the tour… He figured Gerard had given up on him and chose to quit writing.

Then he got a late night call from Mikey pleading to know if Frank had heard anything or gotten anything in the mail. He’d tried going to the show in New York but didn’t make it, and since then he hadn’t been able to get Gerard on the phone. Bert wouldn’t answer him and without postcards to go on, he was afraid something bad had happened.

Frank couldn’t bring himself to admit to having tickets to the show or that he’d been planning to drive there with Ray. He played the role of a lost and confused friend when in reality he felt like the biggest coward alive.

He didn’t go to Gerard when it was so clear that the other man was pleading for help. He wasn’t there for Gerard and it was very possible that he could’ve overdosed and passed away—or could’ve tried getting home on his own only to be murdered by some thug or psycho. 

Frank knew Gerard _wasn’t_ his responsibility, but if anything happened to him, Frank felt like it would be his fault.

He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to say to Mikey or how to even word it to go to Ray for advice. Gerard could very well be dead, all because he was too afraid of getting his heartbroken again to go to the fucking concert. 

A month passed and neither he nor Mikey received any correspondence. It got so bad Mikey left a voicemail threatening to call the police if Bert didn’t answer him.

All he got in response was a text message. 

_He left me in Brooklyn. IDK where he is. Sorry._

Frank tried to encourage Mikey that that was a good thing—Gerard had gotten away from him and was probably trying to make his way back home—but Mikey wasn’t having it. Gerard should’ve been home by now if that was the case. He should’ve made it back, even if he was walking it shouldn’t have taken so long.

The thought that Gerard just might not want to come home didn’t comfort him. He believed something bad had happened and he and his whole family was torn apart by it.

All Frank could do in his attempt to hide from the mistake he’d made, the decision he’d made, was throw himself even further into his work—picking up any shift he could, all the shifts he could. He didn’t sleep, he barely ate… He worked himself to the bone until his body finally broke from it—until his immune system failed him and he finally got sick. 

His muscles ached, his head screamed any time he moved, and all night his body was soaked in sweat to the point that his blankets became heavy and waterlogged. He had to have Ray take Sweet Pea, just to ensure someone was able to take her for walks and get her fed since he could barely moved from the couch into the kitchen. 

It was the flu, his boss told him, and he wasn’t allowed into work until it had cleared up. So far, he’d been sick a week with no signs of getting better. Though his savings account had grown enough in the passing months to cushion the blow, the thought that his job was still on the line left him even more stressed. 

Some nights, he would just lay awake worrying that he was going to die if he managed to fall asleep. He could literally feel himself wasting away in the night sweats and aching bones. It got so bad—the sleep deprivation, the hunger, the pain—he’d start hearing things and seeing things. Sometimes he’d think his mother was in the kitchen fixing him a cup of herbal tea and he’d wonder what was taking her so long—why wasn’t she hurrying? Sometimes he’d think he was back in his childhood bedroom, but would somehow think he heard Gerard talking to him from the other side of the bedroom door.

“I’ll take care of you, Master. That’s my job,” he’d say. And then he never came in the room either.

The visions tortured him, but he didn’t have the strength left to make it to the doctor...so he stayed home and suffered, praying that in another week the fever would break and he’d be fine.

He repeated the thought over and over as he struggled to find sleep.

In another week, the fever would break and he’d be fine. He’d be fine.

He’ll be fine…

Only he wasn’t. 

He could still make out the familiar lines of his bedroom in the dark, could still tell he was in his apartment and not his childhood home, but there was someone bustling around his kitchen. Keys jingling like his mother’s used to when she’d get home late at night from her job. They’d clink on the counter top, she’d rustle through the cupboards looking for something to make to eat before showering and going to bed.

Frank could hear it all playing out. The keys, her purse thumping down onto the floor. The door closing, locking… The cupboard, the sink running as she filled a glass with water. 

From far away, he could hear humming—soft singing as his mother flitted around the kitchen.

God, what he wouldn’t give to actually just go home—have her make him tea, have her take care of him just for a day or two. Maybe he never should’ve left home at all. Maybe if he’d tried harder, she would’ve accepted him as he was and accepted Sweet Pea.

Frank listened to the distant noises, his eyes half open because closing them made the room spin as if he were drunk.

It sounded so real… 

And that singing… It wasn’t his mother’s voice at all, was it?

No…

No, what was that? Whose voice was that singing? He couldn’t tell… He just couldn’t tell.

( ) ( ) ( )

It was harder this time than it had been when he first left Jersey. It was harder to give up on the idea of Frank, harder to give up on the fantasy he’d been building of going home to a lover he sorely missed and starting over…

It was hard to accept that if he wanted a warm bed to sleep in and food in his stomach, he was going to have to settle for the men with wicked tempers. He got a couple one night stands with men who were kind—disinterested in keeping him, but kind enough to let him sleep in their apartments after fucking. But his luck quickly died...and so did his pill collection.

Going through withdrawal was hard enough on its own, but going through it alone on the streets without food or a place to lie down was hell. Pure hell.

He tried as hard as he could, but never found anyone willing to trade pills for his body. He refused to spend the money he’d earned for Frank, still grasping at the faint hope that if he found Frank and paid him, everything might be fine. He couldn’t give up the money… 

He went hungry. He hid in alleyways behind dumpsters while tremors wracked his whole body, while his stomach screamed in horrific pain. There were times he’d go into convulsions the cravings got so bad. No one helped him. No one called an ambulance, no one stopped hustling down the streets to ask if he was alright.

No one gave a shit about him. No person in this whole damned world gave a shit about him…

He didn’t deserve it.

Gerard had screamed in pain and cried and pleaded to God to kill him—just kill him and end the pain—but he survived. It took a long time, it took a very long time, but eventually the pains faded and the tremors became less violent. He was far from recovery, but he was able to put on a mask and go about his business on the streets—fucking in exchange for food or a warm place to sleep. Sometimes it even felt like he was going on dates.

Nothing seemed to last, though, and he was tired of being used—tired of not knowing if the man who screwed him was going to actually wear a condom, not knowing if the man was going to bludgeon him to death once it was over or rob him or keep him hostage. 

He was sick of living hungry in fear and in pain and alone.

He got desperate...and moved into a hotel room with a man named Greg who treated him to Ramen noodles every night and beat him at least twice a day.

He was a gang member and Gerard wasn’t allowed out of the hotel room for anything—because if the other guys saw him and knew, Greg’s reputation would be ruined and they’d probably both get killed.

Greg reminded him of his Trainer and somehow that became easier to swallow than before when the truck drivers would get rough or when Asshole had beat him and Gerard wrecked his apartment. Greg was like a trainer, reminding him of his place in the world—reminding him that he was worthless and that no one else would ever bother to waste time on him.

Gerard let it go on for over a month before he just...snapped.

Greg came home from whatever it was he did (Gerard knew better than to ask) and started yelling. Gerard had been cowering by the bathroom door, no chores to complete and no cooking to do in the hotel room that lacked anything close to a kitchenette. He sat on the floor shaking while Greg screamed and hollered about god knows what in his thick accent, then he stormed over and grabbed Gerard by his hair and yanked him toward the bed.

He’d never gotten forceful about sex. Not once. He never hit during sex, never yelled, never even choked him. 

“Baby? Baby, don’t!” That was the last thing Gerard ever said to him—and Greg would’ve done well to listen. 

Because as soon as Gerard realized Greg was going to fuck him whether he wanted it or not, whether he cooperated or not, Gerard snapped. 

Greg wasn’t his Trainer. Greg wasn’t his Master.

Greg wasn’t shit. 

Greg wasn’t worth shit and Gerard was not going to let that awful thing happen to him again.

When Greg shoved him forward onto the bed, he expected Gerard to stay down the way he did when he was slapped or pushed. He shoved him forward then left him to lay there as he started undoing his belt. In the split second after his body hit the bed, Gerard felt the monster in him that had been numbed by all the drugs for so long open its eyes and roar—he felt it scream using his throat until it burned.

He flung himself backwards and crashed his skull into Greg’s nose, then attacked him when he stumbled backwards clutching at his face. He knocked him to the ground for once, delivering blows to his face and his neck and anywhere else he could reach while Greg clawed at his arms and tried desperately to kick Gerard off of him. 

The monster in him kept howling, tossing up images of his Trainer and his Master and all the men he’d encountered on the road who had treated him wrong. He saw their faces turning bloody under his fists. Saw their bodies laying lifeless underneath him. He crushed each and every one of them until there was nothing left in him. 

The monster quit roaring and everything in him was silent. He felt peace for the first time in months. It was the same calmness he’d had when he and Bert had first started fucking and he knew he had a home for a while… Only this time he was alone. 

No one gave him that peace of mind—he’d earned it. It wasn’t Bert or Frank or even Marcus making him feel at ease. 

He’d won. 

He didn’t fucking need them.

Greg was moaning in agony when Gerard stood up from him. He thought about stomping his throat or his face—thought about actually killing the worthless little worm—but chose not to. What was the point? He’d just end up in prison.

Greg was too out of it to retaliate, so Gerard did what he did best. He cleaned himself up and put his bloodied shirt into a plastic bag to be thrown away in a dumpster somewhere, then he grabbed Greg’s gun, his leather coat, his entire wallet, and his favorite t-shirt just to rub it in. The whole time, Greg just laid there moaning and turning his head back and forth the slightest bit—like he couldn’t figure out what was happening or how to move his limbs. 

He left the hotel room with two hundred more dollars than what he’d had when he went in and used it to get a cab driver who was willing to take him back to New Jersey.

It was a long drive, an expensive drive, but it gave him a safe place to wind down and let the adrenaline wear off. After fifteen minutes, his whole body started shaking and the driver put up his window and turned the heat on thinking the tremors were from the chilly air coming off the shoreline. 

He thought about how he’d left Greg laying there, clearly injured very badly if he hadn’t even tried to get up or go for his gun the whole time Gerard had washed up and collected the things he wanted to take. He wondered if Greg was going to die and if they’d even be able to trace the murder back to him or if they’d give it up as a gang related attack. 

He wondered about Bert and what the other man was doing now—back in Utah, no doubt, probably trying to get back with his ex. Gerard missed him, missed the pills, and found himself thinking about all the things he could’ve done differently to save them so this didn’t have to happen. 

Then he thought about Frank and how Frank never came to the concert. Sometimes he blamed himself for Frank losing interest in him, sometimes the memories of how Frank had given up on him made him so angry he wished he’d done more than just rob him—but now, as he shivered in the backseat of a stranger’s taxi, he found himself making up excuses for the other man.

Maybe he didn’t come to the show because it was too far of a drive or because he couldn’t get off work. Maybe he had tried and got into an accident. Maybe he moved and never got any of the postcards or the letter. It had been over a year, surely his lease ended and he would definitely want to find a better place to stay.

It was that thought which spurred Gerard into asking the taxi driver to pass Frank’s old apartment building and have him drive to the diner instead. He knew Frank worked at two locations and worked strange shifts—assuming he still worked there after all this time—but he felt he had a better shot of finding Frank or information about him there. If it really came down to it, though, Gerard knew his way back to his mother and father’s house from the diner. It was a walk he’d made once before and really prayed he wouldn’t have to again.

His heart was pounding as he paid the cab driver and stepped out onto the pavement in front of the diner. He had on one leather jacket and carried Greg’s in his arm, hoping he didn’t look suspicious but feeling twice as self-conscious with the weight of Greg’s gun inside the lining of his coat. 

He made it inside and felt his spirits sink when he didn’t see Frank, but managed to order coffee and a sandwich before casually asking if Frank was working tonight. 

“Frank? Oh! Frankie, no… No, he’s been out for a couple of weeks now. I haven’t seen him at all,” the waitress said, looking a little concerned but not about Gerard’s question. “Yeah, the regulars are really missing him. I know Mrs. Kowalski asks about him every day when she comes in for her coffee and eggs.”

“I guess I didn’t hear he was taking time off to move,” Gerard said, trying his hardest to fish for more information. 

“Move? I didn’t know he was moving. He told all of us he was sick. I know Paul was really worried about him. He told Frankie to take as much time as he needed. He was, like, dead on his feet the last time I saw him. I hope he’s not trying to move when he’s still that sick.”

“I hope not,” Gerard said, trying to backpedal now so if somehow word did get around, no one would think he was trying to get out of working. The last thing Gerard wanted was to reemerge and get Frank fired. “It’s just the last time I saw him a couple months ago, he said he was thinking about moving. I just assumed… I didn’t know he was sick. That’s too bad.”

He tried not to dwell on it as he drank his cup of coffee, pleased to find no grounds in the bottom this time. He ate his sandwich and tipped well before leaving, his tremors coming back as he made his way to Frank’s apartment.

It felt strange being here. It felt like a dream… His mind was still hazy and images of Greg’s battered face kept popping up in his mind as he made his way down the cracked sidewalks and empty streets. It was so nice after being in crowded, noisy New York. Finally, even though he was alone at night in a less than ideal neighborhood, he felt the tension leave his shoulders. 

He didn’t feel as anxious here, didn’t feel the need to walk faster or cower off to the side. He just moved at his own pace down the lonely roads trying to simultaneously call on and push back the feeling of hope in his chest.

He hoped to find Frank home… He hoped it went well, he hoped Frank took the money and forgave him.

And he feared all of that at the same time. Feared he’d find Frank, feared he wouldn’t… Feared the other man would take the money and then ask him to leave.

Oh, God… What if he got there and Frank had found someone else?

_I guess that’s what the gun is for,_ Gerard thought, then shuddered at his own sick joke. 

He could never hurt Frank like that and it disgusted him that he dared to consider it.

His heart was pounding as he reached the front door of the apartment building and had a moment of panic as he dug around in the lining of his jacket for the spare keys he’d stolen the night he left Frank. It had been so long since he’d really looked for them, so long since he’d taken them out and stared at them wondering what could’ve been or what could be. He feared he might’ve come this far just to have lost them and be left out in the dark.

He dug through the crumpled papers, moved his fingers past the gun, past pens he’d stashed inside his jacket, past empty pill bottles and wads of folded bills—and finally closed his fingers around the metal keys. 

He let himself into the building, then began the slow ascent to Frank’s floor. 

He remembered how terrifying it had been coming here the first time, how hard his body shook then compared to his faint shivering now. 

He’d been so afraid of Frank, so worried about what was going to be done to him once they got inside. He really had been preparing himself for the horror of being used in porn. He’d been crying and scared and so...resigned to whatever Frank would’ve had in mind for him.

All he would’ve had to do to end it was shove Frank down the stairs and kill him. If he really had been a master, all Gerard had to do was push him down the steps…

He’d never even thought of that, never even realized he could do such a thing—even if he had smothered Nick with a pillow once and smashed Adam’s face into a bathroom mirror, he’d never once understood that a master was no different than a slave. They could all bleed. They could all die equally.

Gerard made it to Frank’s door, and then froze. 

He didn’t know how long he stood there with his mind completely blank, but it felt like hours. He felt fear again, worrying about what could happen if the key he had still worked in this door.

Frank might scream at him to leave—probably would. It was after three in the morning.

Frank might ask him why he left, why he robbed him, why he thought Frank would actually come to Gerard’s lover’s concert.

Or the key might not even work. Gerard made himself dwell on that thought so long he started to believe and so it scared him when the key fit perfectly into the lock and the door clicked open when he turned it.

( ) ( ) ( )

He couldn’t fall back asleep. His mind kept straining to comprehend the words and sounds in the next room—the disembodied singing that droned on and on. 

Frank had no choice. He pulled himself out of bed on his shaking limbs, the room dipping and swaying around him as he fumbled toward the beam of light spilling in around his bedroom door.

It almost felt too real to be a fever dream, and yet too distorted to be real. 

Real or not, there was a man walking around his kitchenette, busying himself with dishes and singing in between sips of water and bites of a sandwich.

Frank stood in the mouth of the hallway staring at him, watching with hazy eyes as the person stooped down to begin sifting through the contents of Frank’s refrigerator. The person looked so strange, yet somehow familiar. His voice was familiar…

“Gerard?” Frank wasn’t sure if sound even came out of his mouth. He didn’t feel his own lips move, but the person stood up and stared at him. 

“Hey! You’re up. Did I wake you?” That voice. That smile…

Why was this happening? It was unfair of his mind to play this trick on him. 

“You look awful. Go back to sleep. I’ll finish up here and… Frankie? Oh, Sugar...you look so bad. Come on. Let’s get you back to bed. God, you’re burning up...”

The next thing Frank knew, the man was guiding him back into his bedroom and turning on the light.

“Frankie… This is so bad. Your bed is soaked—you’re sweating like crazy. Do you want to change clothes?”

Frank merely shrugged, the whole room seeming to dip as he did. His balance wavered, but Gerard appeared to catch him before he tipped over. It was the first time one of his fever dreams had been so vivid. He hoped it didn’t mean he was dying…

“Let me help. You can’t be comfortable.” 

Frank took off his soaked t-shirt and changed into a dry pair of pajama pants and one of his looser fitting t-shirts. Gerard appeared to fluff his blankets and then had laid dry towels over the sweat-soaked mattress before motioning for Frank to lay down.

“I’ll get you ice. We have to get your temperature down.”

Frank tried to say something, but his lips didn’t move. He was feeling cold and didn’t like the idea of being surrounded in ice, but Gerard didn’t seem to notice the way he pulled away from the plastic bags of ice being pressed to his forehead and under both of his arms. Next, a glass of water was being pressed to his lips and he drank it down only to have another placed before him. 

“Call me if you need anything—anything,” Gerard whispered as the lights went out again.

Frank stared at the other man’s retreating form, wanting to ask him to come back—wanting to tell him to keep the light on—but unable to speak. The singing started up again and Frank let his eyes fall closed yet again. He rather liked this fever dream… 

He fell into a deep sleep, not waking up two or three times with the need to change out of his soaking clothes or move over to get off of the sweat-soaked patch of blankets underneath him. He woke up still laying on the dry towels his fever-induced hallucination of Gerard had laid down for him—with a cold cloth on his forehead and a bag of ice underneath both of his armpits.

Wait…

Frank sat up slowly, his head for once not pounding as he moved. 

How had he managed to find the strength to get himself ice multiple times throughout the night? Surely the ones he’d gotten before would’ve melted, and he distinctly remembered having ice on his forehead, not a cloth.

He couldn’t deny that he felt better today than he had in a while. It wasn’t a miraculous healing, but his head wasn’t screaming yet and his balance was better as he got to his feet and made his way into the living room.

_This is bad,_ he thought, as he realized his kitchen had in fact been cleaned. He knew he didn’t have the strength to have done in the night before. There was no way in hell he’d managed to clean the place and get himself to bed.

The kitchen was clean, there was a hamper full of folded laundry next to his apartment door, and there was a man sleeping on his couch. 

Frank stepped slowly closer to him, his stomach twisting into a tight knot. Long black hair was curling around such familiar features… Much longer than it had been the last time Frank had seen him—Gerard. 

He had a bruise on his cheek and scabs on all of his knuckles… As Frank stared at him, Gerard shifted a little, turning his head a little as nuzzled the pillow under his head. 

His lip had a scab on it as well, and Frank didn’t know why that injury made his heart drop. He’d known for a while that Gerard was being kept in bad company, but it still hurt to see him injured—to know that a split lip and a bruised face meant someone had been beating him again.

No matter what Gerard had done to him, no matter how much money he stole or how big of a hole he’d left in Frank’s chest when he walked out, Frank couldn't bear the idea of someone hurting him again. Gerard had been through enough… He didn’t deserve more pain.

But he didn’t deserve a place in Frank’s apartment anymore either—whether he was trying to help or not.

Frank watched him sleep a moment longer, then carried himself back to the bedroom and laid down again. There were two glasses of water beside him on the nightstand. One was mostly empty and the other full. He grabbed the full one and took a long drink before pulling the blankets back over his shoulders and closing his eyes. 

He just didn’t understand how he was expected to cope with this… 

How had Gerard gotten in? How did he find his way back and who brought him?—Who came with him? What troubles did he carry and what did he expect Frank to do about them?

His heart ached now instead of his head. It was too much… He wasn’t ready for Gerard to come back. He wasn’t ready to face him and didn’t know what to tell him when they were both rested. Gerard had to know he couldn’t stay here… He had to understand that.

He had to…


	8. Giving's not Enough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long chapter is looooong yet nothing is really accomplished. I feel so ashamed )':

When Gerard woke back up, his entire body was sore and his throat ached—his mouth painfully dry. It was dark in Frank’s apartment and he struggled a moment to find his way around to the kitchenette to pour himself a glass of water.

He hadn’t intended to sleep for so long and he hoped Frank was doing alright. After quenching his thirst, he hurried into Frank’s bedroom to discover his ex-lover fast asleep on top of the covers, a damp cloth on his neck instead of his forehead. He’d changed clothes, Gerard noticed, and put away the bags of ice Gerard had tucked under his arms to bring his fever down. 

A gentle hand on his forehead proved Frank’s fever appeared to have broken and that was a relief. He was still warm, but much better than he had been before.

Gerard took the wet cloth into the bathroom and wetted it again with cold water before draping it over Frank’s forehead. 

It worried him that the little dog was nowhere to be found, and he wondered if Frank had let go of his health because the creature had died. There was still a food bowl on the kitchen counter and a partially filled water dish on the floor, but that didn’t mean anything. Her crate was gone… 

As jealous of that little rat as Gerard had always been, he knew how much she meant to Frank and he never wished any ill-will upon her. 

Gerard busied himself with a little more cleaning, then checked on Frank again before returning to the couch to sleep. He hoped if Frank had already woken up once, the other man had seen him. And if Frank saw him and left him to sleep, didn’t wake him and immediately order him out, that tomorrow morning might go well. Maybe they’d talk. Maybe they’d just pick up where they’d left off and everything would be fine.

Gerard hoped for that much.

He slept a few hours longer, then woke up at dawn with Frank sitting on the couch by his feet. He heart seized up in his chest when he noticed the man staring at him—remembering the first night he slept at Frank’s place and how he’d no less than begged Frank to stay with him on the couch. Frank had sat exactly where he was now, and then he’d placed his hand on Gerard’s calf. Frank had been so desperate to touch him then—like a new pet owner wishing to stroke their new, timid dog. This time, however, Frank wasn’t touching him, wasn’t making any moves to caress his leg or comfort him.

He was sitting there looking tired, looking upset, while Gerard stared at him in fear.

“What are you doing here?” Frank asked. His voice was so rough and broken, his illness making the tone almost unrecognizable. Gerard bet it hurt him to talk and it saddened him. 

“I… I wanted to apologize. I—”

“You don’t need to. It wouldn’t mean anything,” Frank said, getting up quickly and swaying over to the table where he sank down. His body was still so weak and Gerard panicked the very moment Frank moved away from him, worried the other man might fall and get hurt.

“Frank, I’m sorry,” he said, stumbling up from the couch on sleep-stiffened legs. He stood by the table, not feeling like he deserved to sit across from Frank the way he might have before. “I just came to pay you back and I saw you were sick—”

“I don’t want your money. I don’t even want to know how you _got_ money. You don’t owe me anything. Just go.” Frank wasn’t looking at him and was trying hard to keep his emotions off his face. 

“Please listen… I-I know I… I know I messed up. I know what I did was wrong—”

“You robbed me!” Frank snapped, finally looking at him again. “I had to have Ray help pay my rent. I had pick up _more_ hours. Why?”

“You were trying to kick me out,” Gerard said, looking away in shame. Frank had been trying to kick him out and money was the only method he had to get back at him.

“You weren’t _with me_ anymore! What was I supposed to do? I was giving you everything I could and you wouldn’t even get out of bed! I couldn’t help you, Gerard! I couldn’t take seeing you like that anymore! I wanted your family to _help_ you! They could _afford_ to get you help!”

“You were trying to kick me out,” Gerard repeated, hating the sting that bit the back of his eyes.

“I would’ve seen you… I would’ve visited, Gerard! I wasn’t breaking up with you. Mikey and I explained that to you. We told you over and over that it was to get you help—so we wouldn’t lose you! Do you think I wanted to come home to find you dead? To see that you committed suicide while I was at work because I couldn’t _be there_ for you? No! I was trying to _save_ you! We _told you that!”_

Gerard stared at the floor, not knowing what to say and afraid that all he’d do was sob if he tried to speak. 

“So what do you want from me now? To pay me back? You _can’t.”_

Gerard still couldn’t talk and couldn’t bear to look at him. He kept his head down, remembering too many bad things at once—thinking he shouldn’t have come here, thinking he should’ve just stayed with Bert and been his punching bag.

“And what the hell was up with those postcards? Do you realize how fucked up that was for me? ‘xoxo I don’t _love you anymore.’_ What the fuck was that?”

“I was angry,” Gerard said, his voice meek. Pathetic…

“You had no right to be mad at me! I gave you your life back and you spit in my face! You robbed me—you broke my fuckin’ heart. Are you happy? Are you satisfied now that you hurt me back?—or do you need to cause more damage?”

“You were trying to give me away. I didn’t know what I was doing—”

“That’s bullshit! You knew exactly what you were doing!”

“I didn’t want to go with them! I _loved_ you! I wanted to stay with you! It’s not fair to me to just throw me out when you’re done! Yes, I hurt you! Yes, it was on purpose! You don’t _understand.”_ Gerard couldn’t help the tears that started falling and he tried in vain to hide them by covering his face. “Everyone throws me out when they’re done. I didn’t want that from you… Something bad happens and they give me away. It’s not fair.”

“Life’s not fair,” Frank spat. His tone was so harsh, his words cutting like a knife so deeply Gerard felt he’d bear the scar forever. 

And then, as if realizing how much pain he’d caused, he spoke again—his voice much softer.

“Did you really think I wasn’t going to come see you anymore?”

“My parents wouldn’t let you… I know them. You don’t. You really, really don’t know what they did to me growing up,” Gerard said. There was no use keeping barriers now, keeping secrets. His past had started coming back to him more and more as he lived out on the road, and his time with his Master and Trainer had subsided into bad dreams. “I wanted to die. I’ve always wanted that… They just remind me that I’m useless, that I don’t try enough—that I’m not trying on the right things or… I don’t know. I always felt like a mistake they made, like they were disappointed with everything I did. Never good enough… It would be the same with this. Why remember it? Why talk about it? Why was I stupid enough to get caught by them? That’s what they’d want to know. Why was I _stupid?_ I would die there. That night, I… That night it felt like you were trying to kill me.”

“I was trying to help you. That’s all I ever tried to do,” Frank said.

“It didn’t feel that way. No one was listening to me. No one cared what I wanted. You… You didn’t care about what I _wanted.”_

They were both quiet for a very long time, Gerard trying to hold back his tears while Frank apparently thought of something else to say.

“What drugs are you on right now?”

“I haven’t been.”

“Haven’t been what? What does that even mean? You haven’t been?”

“Since Bert, I… Just pot I guess. Liquor when I can get it.”

“I don’t believe that,” Frank said, rather bitterly.

“I can’t afford drugs right now. It was never anything stupid. Just pills. I hate the other shit.”

“Yeah… The red ones make you fly, right? Definitely sounds legal,” Frank scoffed.

“Bert made me… His band made me. I always said no,” Gerard attempted. “I didn’t want to end up like that again, but...I would have panic attacks and the Xanax would help or…or I’d be awkward and nervous and Bert would say I was embarrassing him and if I took the red ones, everyone was nicer—they said they liked me better on those.”

“God, you’re like a kid…” Frank muttered, covering his face with his hands and rubbing his eyes. “You really don’t know how anything works, do you?—Taking that shit so they’d like you. He could’ve gotten you killed.”

It simultaneously irritated Gerard and warmed him to know that Frank was clearly bothered by what he’d done. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t react. He would keep telling Gerard to just leave and get out. But he wasn’t… He was asking questions and trying to understand.

Gerard doubted Frank would ever take him back, but he was hopeful that maybe they could be friends—or at least civil. Gerard had missed him out on the road and hoped beyond measure that he wouldn’t lose the person who meant the most to him.

“Does Mikey know you’re back?” Frank asked abruptly.

“Not yet. I wanted to see you first… I-I wanted to pay you back and then I was going to go, but I saw you were sick so...so I thought I should take care of you first.”

Frank was quiet for a long time, staring at the wall with his hands laced in front of him.

“Yeah, I haven’t been working for a couple weeks,” Frank said, casually. Like he was just making conversation. “I think I have the flu.”

“It seems like it. Marcus had that once… Where’s Sweet Pea?”

“Sweet Pea?” Frank asked, looking distant for a moment before leaning back in his chair. “Oh, she’s just with Ray. I haven’t been able to do a whole lot so I asked him if he could watch her.”

“I was worried,” Gerard said, looking around nervously before deciding it might be a good idea to get Frank something to drink. He poured him a glass of water since there wasn’t juice or anything decent besides beer in the fridge, then rummaged in the cupboards looking for something to serve as a meal. All he could make was oatmeal, but Frank started eating it regardless and didn’t seem to mind when Gerard made a serving for himself.

“So what brought you back to Jersey—other than trying to give me money.”

“You,” Gerard said, trying to make eye contact as he said it only to have Frank ignore it. “I missed you.”

“Guess you would after things didn’t turn into a fairy tale with Bert, huh?”

“He hit me. He...he started hitting me when he was drunk and then...whenever he was hungover in the mornings. I didn’t like it.”

“If you don’t like it, why do you keep getting with people who do it?” Frank asked, gesturing to the bruises on Gerard’s face.”

“That was Greg,” Gerard said, his lip curling into a sneer. “I just needed somewhere to sleep.”

“You could’ve called Mikey. Your family has been worried sick about you. They tried having me arrested after you ran off.”

“They didn’t!” Gerard cried out, dread lacing every word as his heart dropped. That was the last thing he ever wanted. “Nothing came of it right? Y-You didn’t go to jail…?”

“No. But, like it or not, there’s an investigation now. They’ll want to talk to you about what happened. Maybe you can clear my name for good because it feels like shit to have them investigating me.”

“I’ll do whatever I need to to make this right,” Gerard said, trying to reach for Frank’s hand only to have him pull away. 

“You can’t.”

“I’ll do what I can… Frank, I...I was just confused and hurt. So much happened in that short period of time. I didn’t know, really, what I was doing or thinking… I _wasn’t_ thinking.”

“I just want to know why you sent me those postcards…”

“I don’t know,” Gerard whispered, staring at his half-eaten bowl of oatmeal. 

“And why you sent me tickets to Bert’s show.”

“I wanted to see you.”

“You wanted me to _save_ you is what it was.”

“I didn’t want you to forget about me. I tried to move on, but… Bert isn’t you. He’s not even half the man you are. Please… I know I don’t deserve it, but what would you have done if you were me? I-I lost everything because someone hurt me and my Master didn’t want me after that. Something I had no control over… Then I found you and you said you loved me. I _believed_ you...but you don’t love me like Master did. I…” Gerard found himself at a loss for words. He knew what he wanted to say, but doubted Frank would understand. Why would he? Why should he even have to hear Gerard’s pathetic excuses? 

“I don’t think you really loved me, Gerard. I don’t. I think you just… No, you know what? I don’t think you know what love is at all anymore. I think he ruined it for you. And that’s sad...but it’s not my fucking problem.”

Gerard felt his chest grow tight and all he could do was stare down at his unfinished oatmeal, trying not to cry again.

( ) ( ) ( )

Mikey felt like he was about to burst out of his skin with anxiety as he waited for Frank to open his door. He’d gotten a text saying Gerard was there and immediately left work to go see them. He didn’t tell his parents in fear it might trip whatever switch in Gerard’s brain made him act crazy, but going there alone made him feel nervous. 

His mood wasn’t helped in the slightest when Frank opened the door, looking like death.

“Shit. You have the flu or something?” Mikey asked, backing away a bit from Frank’s gray-looking skin and bloodshot eyes.

“Yeah. It’s been kicking my ass,” Frank said as he backed away to let Mikey inside.

Mikey was quick to notice Gerard sitting on the couch, his back to the door and clearly no intention of acknowledging Mikey until he sat down next to him.

“Hey,” was all Mikey could force out. His mouth going dry as he stared at Gerard’s turned face. He was hiding under long strands of black hair—the crown of his head dyed burgundy in an odd little patch—and kept turning his face further away the more Mikey tried to get a look at him. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Gerard whispered. “H-How… How have you been? How’s Mom?”

“Fine,” Mikey said, afraid he was going to see something awful whenever Gerard finally decided to look at him. Maybe he’d gotten one of his eyes gouged out or maybe his face slashed up. God only knew what he’d gotten himself into out on the streets since he left Bert in the city. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t… I-I’m sorry I haven’t written in a while. Money’s tight, I guess.”

“Yeah… You disappeared on us again. I was worried. All of us were pretty worried when you quit sending cards.” Mikey paused, hoping Gerard would start speaking again, but he didn’t. “I spoke to Bert a while back. He said you left him in Brooklyn. Is that true?”

“Did he sound upset about it?”

“I don’t know. I just got a text. He said you left and he didn’t know where you went.”

“Yeah. He wanted to fuck other people. I couldn’t do it anymore.”

“You could’ve called me. I would’ve driven to Brooklyn. It’s not that far,” Mikey said, fidgeting in his seat. He wished Gerard would just look at him. 

“I… I need to sort some things out first. You didn’t need to see me like that, Mikey. I… I couldn’t forgive myself if I let you see me that way.”

“I tried getting tickets to his show. I really tried. I _wanted_ to be there—to meet him and see you.”

Gerard shook his head and finally turned so Mikey could see his face. He was offering a weak smile with a scabbed up lip and a bruised cheek.

“Did he do that to you?” Mikey asked, even though he knew Bert couldn’t have. They’d separated too long about, but he didn’t know how else to ask.

“No. That was Greg,” Gerard said, shaking his head and laughing a little like he thought the abuse was a joke. “He was a mistake, but...I taught him.”

Mikey didn’t know what to say to follow up, and when he looked around the room for a distraction he noticed Frank had disappeared into his bedroom. 

“You know...he was really tore up when you left,” Mikey whispered, still looking at the closed bedroom door. Gerard followed his gaze with a frown, his eyes looking pained for a moment before he started staring at the floor instead. “Why did you leave?”

“Because I didn’t want to go home. And he was kicking me out.”

“We were trying to do what was best for you...and best for him. It was _killing him_ to see you like that, Gerard. Couldn’t you tell?”

“Not at the time,” Gerard whispered, hiding behind his hair again.

“Where did you go?”

“The city… Slept around. I met this one guy at an airport bar in Missouri. He owned this indie label company that Bert was signed to for his first record.” Gerard smiled when he talked about that and Mikey didn’t know why. He was still hung up on how casually, how shamelessly, he mentioned sleeping with strangers to get himself to Missouri—to Utah. “I left him for Bert at his own party. He was trying to fuck some bitch anyway. It was good at the start but...” Gerard looked back at the bedroom door and sighed. “He’s not Frank.”

“You know you can’t stay with him again, right?” Mikey asked, cringing as he waited for his brother’s answer. Gerard was different now—different from who he’d been as a kid, who he’d been when he came, even from who he’d sounded like on the phone when he’d call. He had none of his previous nervous energy about him. No jerky movements or quickly spoken sentences as if he were afraid of something. He was almost tranquil.

It was almost unnatural how calm he seemed.

“I know. I didn’t plan to. I hope he doesn’t think that… I know what I did. It was a mistake.” He rubbed at his eyes with both his hands, then offered Mikey a limp smile. “I just want to stay until he’s better.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Mikey said, looking at Gerard sternly. “You’re just stressing him out, okay? Give him some room. Come home. Just come _home.”_

“He needs taken care of. I promise I’m not leaving again. I know I can’t stay… I know he doesn’t want me—he shouldn’t. I’m worthless, but I have to pay him back for all he did. He took care of me. He didn’t have to.”

“He doesn’t want you to,” Mikey said, as gently as he could. This was going to end badly if Gerard tried to stay.

“Just for tonight… Maybe tomorrow. I’ll come home and I’ll never bother him again.” His face twitched with the most sincere look of pain Mikey had ever seen—as if a bullet had ripped through Gerard’s chest as he made the promise—and then he was back to that blank placidity. “I just don’t want him here all alone. If he gets better, he can at least have Sweet Pea back.”

“Gerard, he doesn’t want you to stay. I don’t know how else to tell you that. He called me so I would take you home. Okay?”

“I’m not leaving yet. He already hates me. What else can he do?”

“Call the fucking cops and have you arrested? I don’t know! Come on… Don’t do this. I know you want to help him, but _you_ can’t. Okay? You can’t...”

Gerard was quiet for a long time and Mikey felt compelled to stare at their reflections in the black TV screen instead of looking directly at his brother. They stayed that way, in silence, for maybe over half an hour. Every now and then, Frank’s coughing in the next room would ring out, the only other sound in the whole world it seemed. When Mikey looked to Gerard again, his older brother was steadily—silently—crying. 

“Do you think he’ll ever forgive me?” Gerard asked.

“I-I don’t know.”

“No one else is going to love me like he did… I wasted it, didn’t I? I didn’t know what I had and I lost it.”

Mikey wished he could be honest—tell him like it was, tell him yes, you did ruin it—but he couldn’t. Not with Gerard looking so heartbroken. He couldn’t say any of the things he’d planned to say, any of the angry words or heartfelt word he’d thought up whenever he was alone and would play out scenarios in his head. Sometimes he’d fantasized about screaming in Gerard’s face for being so selfish and thoughtless. Sometimes he’d imagined telling his brother how much he missed him and loved him—words he never would smart enough to say eloquently on the spot.

Now, all he could think to do was shrug and put his hand on Gerard’s slumping shoulder. 

“Give it time. Frank’s...a rational guy. He knows you weren’t really thinking back then. I mean, hell… You were putting your fist through the wall at home and scaring our parents—”

“I hit him,” Gerard sobbed, scrunching up his face in pain again. “I-I hit him—of all the people in the world… I’ll never forgive myself.”

“It was an accident,” Mikey said, struggling a moment to remember what Gerard was talking about. It had been the day they broke the news to him that Grandma had died. He’d panicked—he’d shoved Mikey and either punched Frank or slapped him, Mikey couldn’t remember. It hadn’t been _bad._ It wasn’t deliberate…

“Bert started hitting me,” Gerard said quietly, wiping his eyes on the heel of his hand. “He’d get drunk or whatever and...smack me to get me off him or… I was just trying to hold him the one night and he punched me. I never wanted to make Frank feel like that. I don’t want him to feel like I had to.”

“You never told me that fucker hit you,” Mikey snapped.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes it does! What are you doing with a guy like that? I knew he was on drugs but I didn’t think he was fucking prick! That asshole!”

“It’s fine—It’s over.”

“You need to stop it with these _losers!_ That Greg guy, Bert—who else?”

“Everyone,” Gerard said, shaking his head and rubbing at his eyes roughly. “It’s what you get. That’s what you get for being a whore on the streets. It doesn’t matter what they do to me. It’ll never be enough to make up for what I did.”

“That’s bullshit! Gerard, are you fucking crazy!?” Mikey couldn’t decide if he was hurt or just _mad._ It frustrated him to know he could say nothing to fix this. Nothing he said would change what Gerard felt or make him realize that hitting Frank in a blind panic didn’t make him deserving of abuse from his lovers. 

Gerard’s only experience with love, besides Frank, was his Master. And that man trained him to accept pain as a form of affection. Nothing Mikey said was going to fix that.

“It’s what I get,” Gerard said bitterly. “I had something good. I ruined it.”

“You got depressed. Our grandma died. You went through _hell._ No one was blaming you for that. Stop beating yourself up over it—literally! Stop! Frank was trying to help you. You didn’t ruin anything until you walked out on all of us.”

“He was giving me away,” Gerard whimpered, his voice suddenly back to the shrill tone he used to have back when they first been reunited—back when he was afraid of his own shadow. “My Master was giving me away again. I didn’t know what to do.” He started crying again, burying his face in his hands this time as he sobbed.

Mikey didn’t know what to say to him. He was exhausted, already, and frustrated and trying not to show it as he rubbed his hand gently up and down Gerard’s back. After a while, he gave in and leaned over—putting his head on his brother’s shoulder and sighing when Gerard tipped his head against his own. Mikey guessed there really wasn’t much else they could say to each other at that point…

“He can stay the night...or whatever.” Frank’s voice rang out over the silence despite how rough and strained it was. When Mikey looked over at the doorway, he saw Frank standing there shaking his head, looking up at the ceiling irritably—like he was kicking himself for even talking. 

“You don’t have to do that,” Mikey said, knowing it was bad. Knowing just how bad it was going to be on all of them. He didn’t want this whole nightmare to start over again.

Gerard’s place was at _home._ It was time he came home, and Frank didn’t deserve to suffer anymore. And as much as Mikey hated to admit it, that was all Gerard was going to do to him. Gerard would wear him down just like he had the last time.

As much as he loved Gerard and as much as he wanted to defend him, Mikey couldn’t deny that what Gerard did to Frank had been inexcusable. He robbed him knowing full well just how tight money had been for Frank, and then left him with nothing but postcards boasting about his new relationship. What good could come of him worming his way back in?—Even if he seemed sincere in his quest for forgiveness.

“You can tell your parents or whatever...I don’t care if they come over. He can stay tonight if he really wants to, but that’s...” Frank didn’t even finish the sentence. He shook his head angrily and went back into his room, shutting the door loudly behind him.

“Gerard, don’t!” Mikey snapped as soon as Gerard got up from the couch. He was going to chase after Frank now, stress him out even worse—make things even worse.

But there wasn’t anything Mikey could do. He was rendered completely helpless, torn between letting his brother do as he pleased and sticking up for the friend he’d made in his brother’s absence. 

This was just going to be so... _bad._

( ) ( ) ( )

Frank couldn’t stand it. 

He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t sleep no matter how hard he was trying, and he couldn’t tune out Gerard’s voice in the other room.

“I ruined it,” Gerard cried. He sounded so sincere and so broken up about it. Frank wanted to scoff at it—managed to force a cruel thought or two into his mind where it didn’t belong—then Mikey responded.

“You got depressed. Our grandma died. You went through _hell.”_

That was true, wasn’t it? Frank remembered those days so vividly. He’d played them over so many times, trying to see what went wrong—trying to figure out if he’d said something or missed a clue that would’ve hinted at what Gerard had planned. 

He remembered how Gerard tried reading his comics, how he’d listen to music on his headphones and sit huddled up on the couch in the blankets… Then he’d crawl back into bed and sleep for hours and hours because he was too depressed to even read. He remembered how Gerard was trying so desperately to hide how depressed he was so Frank wouldn’t worry. He would scatter his comic books around to make it look like he’d read, and then sleep more. 

Frank had been so afraid he’d come home to find Gerard dead that he convinced himself that sending the other man home was the only way to keep him safe. He didn’t know it would set Gerard off.

“He was giving me away! My Master was giving me away again. I didn’t know what to do.”

Gerard’s sobs cut into him like a knife and Frank let out a groan. 

He was falling back into it. He was getting sucked into Gerard’s little trap and he knew the only way he could go on living with himself was if he relented. He wanted to stay mad—he had every right to tell Gerard to get the fuck out of his apartment and the fuck out of his life—but he couldn’t. Not with _those_ memories swirling around in his head.

He remembered seeing Gerard on that stage… He cried and cried and begged that man not to sell him. He wasn’t like the others. He wasn’t screaming in terror or fighting to get away. No, he stood there and took it—knowing what he was about to have happen. 

Given away like an animal—auctioned off like livestock without having any say or any clue about what would be done to him. He’d sincerely believed Frank was pretending to be ordinary, believed Frank’s lie that he filmed porn and wanted Gerard as his model. Back then, he was so broken and naive—so afraid of everything.

Of course he lashed out when Frank told him he decided it was best they parted ways. 

Of course he didn’t understand Frank wanted what was best for him.

All he knew in the world was that he had a Master who didn’t beat him for once and that Master was bored with him and wanted him gone. 

A Master. 

Frank had never been anything more to him than that, no matter how well he pretended to be adjusting. It was Frank’s fault for sleeping with him. It was Frank’s fault for not getting the police involved right away… 

If he hadn’t fucked Gerard, none of this would’ve happened, Frank decided.

He was pissed off and tired, and he knew everything that happened was his own damned fault.

Groaning, Frank kicked off his blankets and got out of the bed, shivering as the cold chills rushed down his spine. He couldn’t take any more. This needed to stop. Something had to just fucking _stop!_

Pacify him, Frank thought. Shut him up. Tell him what he wanted to hear so he stopped crying and reminding Frank of that night at the auction and the weeks that came after.

“He can stay the night...or whatever,” Frank said, looking at the ceiling so he didn’t have to see their faces staring at him.

“You don’t have to do that,” Mikey said.

“You can tell your parents or whatever...I don’t care if they come over. He can stay tonight if he really wants to, but that’s...” _up to him,_ Frank thought, going back into his room and bitterly slamming the door. He was playing into a stupid game, wasn’t he? He was letting Gerard jerk him around, just like always. He’d come this far, he’d gotten the balls to skip that concert, and now he was going back on all of it. Undoing everything.

“Gerard, don’t!” Mikey called out in the other room.

_Oh, God… Here he comes,_ Frank thought. _Here he comes—going to try grabbing me._

Only when Gerard got in the bedroom, he made no other advances. 

Frank laid down and shuffled under the blankets while Gerard stood with his back to the closed door, looking anxious.

“What?” Frank asked. “Isn’t that enough for you? Isn’t that what you wanted?—To stay?”

“Frank, I—”

“Don’t you mean ‘Master’? Isn’t that all I am?—One of those people?” He didn’t know why he said it, but the words left a bitter taste in his mouth. Why did he have to say that? Why did he have to bring _that_ up? God...his head was killing him again.

“I won’t stay… I just want to make sure you’re better. It’s all I can do if you won’t let me pay you. So you can get Sweet Pea back.”

“Yeah, I heard you out there. Do whatever you want. You will anyway. You always have...”

“I want to be better for you.”

Frank sighed heavily, squeezing his eyes shut in irritation. 

“Do whatever you want, just go away… I’m exhausted. Let me sleep.”

“Can I get you anything?” Gerard asked, his voice meek the way it used to be whenever Gerard would ask permission to do things around the apartment when Frank first brought him home.

God, this just wasn’t _fair._

“Some more water… Then please just leave me alone.”

It really surprised him when Gerard disappeared from the room and returned moments later with a cool glass of water which he left on the nightstand without a word, and without trying to touch Frank at all. 

( ) ( ) ( )

Frank managed to sleep for a couple of hours after telling Gerard he could stay. When he woke up, he could still hear Mikey talking in the other room along with the television playing softly. He didn’t particularly mind that Mikey was still at his apartment, knowing the brothers had a fair amount of catching up to do, but it made him feel like he was intruding when he stepped out of the bedroom to go to the bathroom.

Mikey paused in whatever he was saying and looked over at him, and Gerard stared at Frank curiously—like he was expecting Frank to say something to him, and then disappointed when he didn’t.

“I’m going to text Ray and see if he’ll bring Sweet Pea home tomorrow,” Frank said as he was returning to his bedroom. “You’ll help look after her, right?” 

“Of course,” Gerard said quickly, nodding as well to show just how eager he was to prove his worth again. 

It was hard not to soften up to him again, but Frank bit back anything else he might’ve liked to say and went back to his bed. 

In the other room, Gerard and Mikey spoke to each other quietly before, after another hour or so, Mikey said he was going to leave. Gerard saw him out of the apartment and then, shortly after the door had closed, turned off the television. Frank waited in silence, watching the beam of light filtering under his bedroom door disappear. He expected Gerard to come try crawling into bed with him the way he used to, but Gerard never did.

He was listening for once and Frank had to quickly squash his budding thought that “maybe this time it’ll be different.” There was no “this time,” no “next time.” He and Gerard were over. Gerard was just _toxic._ He was bad… 

Even so, Frank’s mind kept spinning with “maybe he learned his lesson” and “maybe he got it all out of his system.” He’d been gone over a year, out there in the world by himself with no one to try protecting and smothering him the way Frank had.

Maybe this time they’d have something to talk about other than whatever tortures Gerard had been put through by his Masters 

Frank groaned as the thoughts continued creeping up on him. 

Yeah, they could talk about _Bert_ instead, and drugs and all the people he slept with for money and drugs. Frank had to force himself to remember just what Gerard had _chosen_ to become when he left Frank’s apartment. All because he didn’t want to go home to his parents.

Was life out on the street really better than being home with them?

That was the one big mystery Frank couldn’t solve. Mikey seemed well adjusted enough… Sure, he’d fallen into a similar path when it came to drug use, but Frank always assumed that had something to do with Gerard disappearing. He’d relapsed for a bit when Gerard disappeared the second time, but seemed to have cooled it on the hard stuff a few months after the postcards started coming in. 

Mikey always eluded to the idea that their parents had been hard on Gerard, pushing him to “be someone” maybe a bit too hard, but they’d never been abusive. They’d never really hurt him, so why the big fuss about going back home? Why was he afraid of them? 

And if he really was that afraid of them, was he actually going to leave this time when Frank asked him to? He couldn’t stay… Not until Frank had figured him out again. It was too easy to get caught up in a fantasy, pretending nothing was wrong and that life was one big great fairy tale wherever Gerard was concerned. It was easy to think that he’d learned his lesson and came home ready to be an equal partner, capable of showing love without lashing out in a rage whenever things didn’t go how he wanted. It would be easy to delude himself into thinking that, but Frank refused.

Gerard had burnt him, had robbed him, had sent him a letter accusing him of being the reason Gerard had left the second time… It wasn’t a far stretch to believe Gerard simply came back to see what else he could steal to fuel his drug addiction. 

Frank lay in bed, feeling the disappointment like a heavy weight crushing his chest. His throat was starting to hurt again and he’d already finished the water he’d had in his glass from earlier. Even so, he couldn’t bring himself to get up for anything in fear Gerard might try talking to him or following him back to bed.

The frustration of not being able to move freely through his own apartment helped Frank keep the wall up around his heart. Gerard was a burden. He had always been a burden—from day one to now. 

Especially now, Frank thought as he heard Gerard getting up from the couch. Here it comes. Now he’s going to try getting in the room, getting in bed with him like nothing ever went wrong between them…

He listened as Gerard approached his bedroom door and started forming a rebuttal in his mind as he waited for the knock or for Gerard to just barge in—but the other man passed his door and went into the bathroom instead. He washed his hands when he was done, then seemed to hesitate for a while. 

Frank’s heart pounded as he listened to the silence, knowing Gerard hadn’t gone back to the couch yet. What was he doing? Was in the bathroom snorting something? Shooting something up? Frank was about to get out of bed to catch him in the act of whatever he was doing, unable to stand not knowing what the other man had brought into his house, then he heard Gerard start gagging—heard him choking and vomiting into the toilet.

Great… 

Was it stress or withdrawal, or did he have the flu now as well?

Frank really didn’t want to find out.

( ) ( ) ( )

The following morning, Frank was almost positive he had the answer to his question. Gerard’s skin had turned a sickening gray color and though the man was still trying to cater to Frank’s needs—bringing him a glass of water halfway through the night and making sure he took some Ibuprophen that morning—it was clear that he had little to no energy of his own. 

Frank immediately regretted the text message he’d sent last night to Ray, asking him to bring Sweet Pea home. It was too late to call him back though. Frank had gotten up because Ray said he was on his way over. 

“You should drink some more water,” Frank said, standing next to the couch where Gerard was laying down, looking like death. 

Yes, definitely the flu.

“I think…I’m going to go home today. If that’s okay,” Gerard answered. 

It caught Frank off guard, it really did, and he wasn’t expecting the words to sting as much as they did. All that effort to get back in Frank’s life, all that effort in the past to avoid going home, and all he really needed was to catch the flu and he was ready to pack up and walk out a second time.

“That bad, huh?”

“I don’t want to make you sick, too,” Gerard said, staring at the blank TV screen instead of Frank.

“I don’t think I’ll catch it again, but if you want to go—”

Before Frank could finish, there was a knock at the door. He was surprised that the noise didn’t even seem to register with Gerard who used to go into a panic almost any time someone knocked at the door. 

“That’ll be Ray,” Frank said, going to get the door. Gerard didn’t say anything or show any interest at all, leaving Frank to feel almost a bit guilty. He guessed it was inevitable that Gerard would get sick because of him, but he never expected it to take so quickly. Two nights with him and Gerard’s energy was completely zapped. It made him worry about Mikey…

“Hey, you don’t look like _Night of the Living Dead_ anymore!” Ray said cheerfully, holding Sweet Pea under one arm. She wriggled like crazy when her buggy eyes landed on Frank and he happily pulled her into his arms so she could lick his face, her whole body shivering with excitement. 

“Yeah, I’m still not one-hundred percent, but I feel a lot better today.”

“Don’t stress yourself out too much. If she gets to be, you know, too much to handle, just call me. I don’t mind taking her.”

Ray didn’t seem dead set on coming into the apartment at first, and for that Frank had been grateful. He didn’t feel up to explaining why Gerard was on his couch or why Gerard now looked like _Night of the Living Dead,_ but when he set Sweet Pea down on the floor, she was quick to run over to the couch and start yapping. 

“You have someone over?” Ray asked, looking a bit perturbed. He knew Frank had been practically dead for two weeks and the likelihood of him finding a lover to stay the night while barely able to get out of bed was impossible.

“Yeah… It’s a long story,” Frank said, cringing as he watched Ray’s face fall with a stern, disappointed look. 

“Don’t tell me he’s back…”

“Okay, then I won’t,” Frank said, trying to force a weak smile to show how irritated he was. He just wanted his dog back—not to have this discussion. 

Behind him, he could hear Gerard sitting up on the couch as Sweet Pea jumped up to join him.

“How did he get here?” Ray asked, his voice a quiet whisper. 

“He walked or something. I don’t know. He showed up a couple nights ago. Mikey know—he was here last night. He says he’s going home today. Isn’t that right?” Frank asked at a volume that commanded Gerard’s attention. The other man turned around on the couch to look at Frank, his bloodshot eyes looking meek as he stared at Ray. “You’re going home today?”

“If you can call Mikey for me…I think I should go.” He looked at Ray the whole time he said it. A year later and he was still afraid of Ray for no real reason. 

“What brought him back here?” Ray asked, still whispering as if he didn’t want to acknowledge Gerard.

“He said he wanted to pay me back since I didn’t come to the show.” 

“Pay you back? Sounds like an excuse to me…”

“It is,” Frank said, shrugging. “Don’t worry. He’s not staying,” he added on when Ray’s expression never changed from that almost fatherly disappointment. 

“Are you sure you’re alright? I can…I can take him back to his place if you want me to. You don’t have to wait around for Mikey.”

“Trust me, Mikey will be here the minute I call. I’m not worried about it.”

“Well, check your wallet before he goes,” Ray said, passing Gerard one final look before saying his goodbyes to Frank and leaving. Frank came over to the couch to pick up Sweet Pea and get her to leave Gerard alone. 

“I have your money,” Gerard said, his voice horribly rough as he started digging around his back pocket in order to produce his wallet.

“I don’t want it. I told you that before.”

“Well I want you to have it, so please…” Gerard took out a large stack of bills and set it on the coffee table when Frank refused to move his hand to take it from him. “I don’t want this between us. What I did was awful. I can’t make up for it, but…please, just take it.”

Frank looked at the wad of money, then back at Gerard who was staring at him desperately. 

“If you want to pay me back, it’s going to cost about five thousand bucks. Because that’s what I spent on you. This is nothing compared to that,” he added, gesturing to the bills before walking over to the kitchenette where he set Sweet Pea down by the counter in order to start fixing her a bowl of food.

“I don’t have five thousand,” Gerard whispered, looking ashamed of himself again as he leaned back against the couch. 

“Yeah, I know you don’t,” Frank said, setting the bowl down on the floor in front of Sweet Pea. After giving her a few quick pats on the head, he took out his cell phone and typed a message to Mikey, letting him know Gerard was sick and that he’d been asking to go home. 

“If I got you five thousand, would you…maybe consider—”

“I don’t want money from you sleeping with other men. That’s disgusting. Have some self-respect before you go out there and catch something…or get killed by someone.”

“I was thinking…I’d try a job. Mikey and I talked about it last night—”

“I’m going to take a shower,” Frank said. “Mikey says he’ll be here in a little bit.”

Gerard stared at him sadly, then laid back down across the couch, visibly disheartened. Frank tried not to feel bad for him as he left the room to wash up. The whole time he was in the shower, his mind kept playing over the question Gerard had been asking—the one Frank interrupted. 

If he gave him five thousand, would Frank consider…what? Taking him back in? Being friends? Forgetting it all ever happened? 

Frank guessed it didn’t matter. He wasn’t ever going to see that money again and it had never been his intention to make Gerard or his family pay up. He’d won the cash in an odd twist of fate—an odd twist of fate that led him to saving Gerard. As far as he was concerned, it may as well be considered divine intervention. 

When he thought about it, though, it made it that much harder to just let Gerard walk away again. He was reminded of how he’d looked that night at the auction and of all the other victims there—the children in particular. Gerard had been a young teenager when he’d gotten taken. He’d been living in a nightmare for years and Frank knew he was the first person who had actually ever helped him and showed him kindness with no demands for something in return. 

The thoughts were still buzzing around his now-aching head as he finished his shower and went back into his bedroom to change clothes. As soon as he’d pulled on a clean shirt, there was a loud knocking on his door and he sighed as he hastened his pace and hurried to the door before Mikey kicked it in.

And not just Mikey, it seemed, but his father as well. Because that wouldn’t set Gerard off.

Frank sighed as the man stared at him, not even able to think of some pleasantry to say to the man who’d been trying to get him arrested and sue him a year ago.

“Well where the hell is he?”

“He’s on the couch. I’m not keeping him,” Frank said, grabbing Sweet Pea who was barking and bouncing backwards a bit each time she did. He took her with him into his bedroom and closed the door, not wanting to deal with anything that was happening. Let Mikey and his father repossess Gerard like a soulless object…

He could hear them all talking—all of them except Gerard whose rough voice was a mere whisper from the pain in his throat—could hear Gerard’s father trying to argue while Mikey said to “keep calm—don’t start. Please, don’t start.”

Meanwhile, Frank just sat on his bed petting Sweet Pea as she yapped at all the noise. Gerard was supposed to stay here and help him take care of her until he was better… But he guessed that wouldn’t have been possible even if Gerard did stay. He was sick now, too, and Frank knew he couldn’t take care of Gerard—even if he wanted to, which he didn’t. 

“Well, can I at least say—” Gerard’s broken voice rang out in distress, but was quickly cut off by his father’s impatient rage.

“Let’s _go!”_ The man boomed. Gerard whimpered something Frank couldn’t distinguish, his voice sounding pained enough that Frank almost wanted to get up and go check on him, and then the door slammed.

The door slammed and his apartment fell silent and Frank knew, once again, that he was on his own.


End file.
